In Buck's love must lay her salvation. With that stronger than death no disaster could come. He was right, and she was all wrong. He had laughed them to scorn--she must join in his laugh.
So at last came peace. The last wakeful night before the morning of her aunt's return terminated in a few hours of refreshing, much-needed slumber. Hope had dawned, and the morrow must bring the morrow's events. She would endeavor to await them with something of the confidence which supported Buck.
* * * * * The room was still, so still that its atmosphere might have been likened to the night outside, which was heavy with the presage of coming storm. There was a profound feeling of opposing forces at work, yet the silence remained undisturbed.
It was nearly nine o'clock, and the yellow lamplight shed its soft monotony over the little parlor, revealing the occupants of the room in attitudes of tense concentration, even antagonism. Mercy Lascelles swayed slowly to and fro in the new rocking-chair Joan had purchased for her comfort. Her attenuated figure was huddled down in that familiar attitude which the girl knew so well, but her face wore an expression which Joan had never beheld before.
Usually her hard eyes were coldly unsmiling. Now they smiled--terribly. Usually her thin cheeks were almost dead white in their pallor. Now they were flushed and hectic with a suggestion of the inward fire that lit her eyes. The harsh mouth was irrevocably set, till nose and chin looked as though they soon must meet, while the hideous dark rings showed up the cruel glare of her eyes, which shone diabolically.
Joan stood some paces away. She was looking down aghast at the crouching figure, and her eyes were horrified. This was the first she had seen of her relative since her return that morning. The old woman had shut herself up in her bedroom, refusing to speak, or to eat, all day. But now she had emerged from her seclusion, and Joan had been forced to listen to the story of her journey.
It was a painful story, and still more painfully told. It was full of a cruel enjoyment such as never in her life Joan had believed this woman capable of. Her eccentricities were many, her nervous tendencies strange and often weird, but never had such a side of her character as she now presented been allowed to rise to the surface.
At first Joan wondered as she listened. She wondered at the fierce purpose which underlaid this weakly body. But with each passing moment, with each fresh detail of her motives and methods, her wonder deepened to a rapidly growing conviction which filled her with horror and repulsion. She told herself that the woman was no longer sane. At last she had fallen a victim to her racked and broken nerves, as the doctors had prophesied. To them, and to the everlasting brooding upon her disappointments and injuries for all these long years.