Granny snatched eagerly at the money, muttering maledictions on the girl for her extravagance, but Liane, sitting with downcast eyes, pretended not to take any notice of her, until the old woman, glaring at her in wonder at the beauty that could win such a prize, demanded harshly:
"Was Miss Clarke's picture in that contest?"
When Liane answered in the affirmative, she was startled at the woman's anger.
"You dared to take that prize over beautiful Roma's head--you?" she cried furiously.
"I did not take it. The judges gave it to me. The contest was open to any pretty girl, rich or poor," Liane answered gently.
Granny looked as if she could spring upon the girl and rend her limb from limb, so bitter was her rage. She moved about the room, clinching her hands in fury, whispering maledictions to herself, but again Liane forgot to notice her, she was so absorbed in her own troubles.
She had dreamed a fleeting dream of love and bliss, and the awakening was cruel!
"I have been vain, foolish, to dream he loved me because he sent me a few roses and offered to walk home with me that night. He was only amusing himself," she thought, shrinking in pain from the cruel truth.
The bright, cool days of October gave place to dreary, drizzly, bleak November.
Liane had become absorbed into Boston's great army of busy working girls. Lizzie White had secured her a position at a glove counter in the same store with herself, and granny had rented two cheap rooms in Mrs. Brinkley's house, and gone to housekeeping.
Her resentment against Liane continued unabated, and she never gave the girl a kind word, but she refrained from acts of violence, lest her meek slave should rebel and leave her alone, in her old age and poverty, to fight the battle of a useless existence.
Meanwhile Judge Devereaux had died and been buried with the pomp and ceremony befitting his wealth and position, and his son and daughter had inherited his millions.
Roma Clarke did not fail to send a letter of the sweetest sympathy to her former lover--a letter that in writing and expression was so far different from Liane's letter that he could not fail to note the difference.
"Poor Liane! What a pity her mind is not as cultured as her lovely face!" he thought, with a bitter pang.