ward.

There was no wise person to note and take warning of the strange light
in Ann Walden's eyes as she met the question put to her; it was,
however, the look of insanity--the insanity which feeds upon
hallucination; the kind that evolves from isolated repression and the
abnormal introspection of the self-cultured.

"When you are older, Cynthia."

"No, now, Aunt Ann. I must know. My mother's picture hangs in the
library, but my father's is not there and no one ever speaks of my
father."

How could one fling into the simple innocence demanding knowledge, the
bare, bold truth? But Ann Walden, driven at bay, worn, embittered and
touched already by her doom, answered slowly:

"Your--father was--a bad man! that is why no one speaks of him; why his
picture does not hang near your mother's."

"A bad man? What did he do, Aunt Ann?" A childish fear shook
Cynthia's face. Bad, to her, was such a crude, primitive thing; "was
he bad like--like the men here who drink and beat their women?"

"Worse than that!"

"Worse, Aunt Ann? Did he--beat my mother?'"

The horror, instead of calming Ann Walden, spurred her on.

"He--he killed her!"

"Killed her!" And with that Cynthia dropped beside her aunt and clung
desperately to her hand, which lay idle in her lap. "Oh! is--is--he
dead? Can he come to hurt us?"

Then Ann Walden laughed such a laugh as Cynthia had never heard before,
but with which she was to become familiar.

"He's dead. He cannot hurt us any more. He did his worst--before you
were born."

A sigh of relief escaped the girl as she listened and her tense face
relaxed.

"But we would not touch his money, would we, Cynthia? nor have anything
to do with any kin of his, would we?"

"No, no, Aunt Ann."

"Then----" and now Ann Walden bent close and whispered: "then have
nothing to do with her--at Trouble Neck! She comes with money; with a
hope of forgiveness--but we do not forgive such things, do we, Cynthia,
and we Waldens cannot be bought?"

"No, no!"

"When you see her, tell her so! Tell her to keep away--we do not
believe her; we do not want her!"

The flowers on the pretty girlish head were already wilted in the heat
of the morning and something more vital and spiritual had faded and
drooped in Cynthia Walden's soul. She looked old and haggard as she
rose up and drew a long breath like one who had drunk a deep draught
too hastily. Even the yearning for love had departed--unless God wer