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THE REBELLIOUS BLOSSOM
117
TAKEN UNAWARES
ing my way to my home. With a sense of foreboding, I entered the house without ringing, the door being fortunately unlocked, but found no one within. But my sure instinct came at once to my aid, and I hurried thru the house and out into the garden.
Can I picture the scene which met my flashing eyes? I cannot. No one could. I cannot even describe it. No one could. I cannot even hint at the horror of it. It must remain locked in my heart, a terrible thing, like a corpse in a tomb. It must forever be secret. My mother and a man were seated in chairs placed close together. His arms were about her, her arms were about hi^ neck. He was pressing his lips to hers ! So far his vile plans succeeded that she seemed to like it! At my involuntary cry of amazement and rage, the coward sprang to his feet and fled — making his escape before I could identify him or be sure that I would know him when we again met.
Mama I treated with that mixture of gentleness, coldness, and pitying disapproval appropriate to the occa
sion. One thing I resolved, and firmly told her: that under no circumstances would I again leave her side, and particularly, that I would not return to Hillcrest. My attitude in this was strengthened the following morning, when Mama received a letter from Miss Sharpe, stating that under no consideration would I be permitted to continue at her school. Naturally, this made me only the more firm in my decision. Mama did not urge my return. Tho I was most gentle with her, she seemed to have come to fear me, an attitude of which I did not entirely approve.
A few days later the most remarkable incident occurred — tho the effect was more remarkable than the incident itself. It is utterly impossible to make this matter comprehensible, or even to relate it. I returned home unexpectedly from a visit which I had expected, and which Mama had expected, would last all day, but which had terminated abruptly when the girl, whom I had always thought a friend (0 ! the falseness of human nature!) intimated, unmistakably, that she thought her