"He does not care for my money," Maude thought, and her heart went out toward him more lovingly than it had ever done before, and her dark eyes filled with tears when he told her, as he ere long did, that he must leave the next day, and return to Rochester.
"The little property left me by my mother needs attention, so my agent writes me," he said, "and now the will has gone up, and we are poorer than we were before by five thousand dollars, it is necessary that I should bestir myself, you know." Maude could not tell why it was that his words affected her unpleasantly, for she knew he was not rich, and she felt that she should respect him more if he really did bestir himself, but still she did not like his manner when speaking of the will, and her heart was heavy all the day. He, on the contrary, was in unusually good spirits. He was not tired of Maude, but he was tired of the monotonous life at Laurel Hill, and when his agent's summons came it found him ready to go. That for which he had visited Laurel Hill had in reality been accomplished.
He had secured a wife, not Nellie, but Maude, and determining to do everything honorable, he on the morning of his departure went to the doctor, to whom he talked of Maude, expressing his wish to marry her. Very coldly the doctor answered that "Maude could marry whom she pleased. It was a maxim of his never to interfere with matches," and then, as if the subject were suggestive, he questioned the young man to know if in his travels he had ever met the lady Maude Glendower. J.C. had met her frequently at Saratoga.
"She was a splendid creature," he said, and he asked if the doctor knew her.
"I saw her as a child of seventeen, and again as a woman of twenty-five. She is forty now," was the doctor's answer, as he walked away, wondering if the Maude Glendower of to-day were greatly changed from the Maude of fifteen years ago.
To J.C.'s active mind a new idea was presented, and seeking out the other Maude--his Maude--he told her of his suspicion. There was a momentary pang, a thought of the willow-shaded grave where Kate and Matty slept, and then Maude Remington calmly questioned J.C. of Maude Glendower--who she was, and where did she live?
J.C. knew but little of the lady, but what little he knew he told.
She was of both English and Spanish descent. Her friends, he believed, were nearly all dead, and she was alone in the world.
Though forty years of age, she was well preserved, and called a wondrous beauty. She was a belle--a flirt--a spinster, and was living at present in Troy.
"She'll never marry the doctor," said Maude, laughing, as she thought of an elegant woman leaving the world of fashion to be mistress of that house.
Still the idea followed her, and when at last J.C. had bidden her adieu, and gone to his city home, she frequently found herself thinking of the beautiful Maude Glendower, whose name, it seemed to her, she had heard before, though when or where she could not tell.
A strange interest was awakened in her bosom for the unknown lady, and she often wondered if they would ever meet. The doctor thought of her, too--thought of her often, and thought of her long, and as his feelings toward her changed, so did his manner soften toward the dark-haired girl who bore her name, and who he began at last to fancy resembled her in more points than one. Maude was ceasing to be an object of perfect indifference to him. She was an engaged young lady, and as such, entitled to more respect than he was wont to pay her, and as the days wore on he began to have serious thoughts of ****** her his confidant and counselor in a matter which he would never have intrusted to Nellie.
Accordingly, one afternoon when he found her sitting upon the piazza, he said, first casting an anxious glance around to make sure no one heard him: "Maude, I wish to see you alone a while."
