She hated
holiness because she herself was sinful!
It was midnight before Gila and Tennelly came forth, Tennelly grave and
sad, Gila tear-stained and subdued.
Courtland was sitting in the big chair before the fireplace, though the
fire was smoldering low, and the elevator-boy had long ago retired to
slumbers on a bench in a hidden alcove.
Tennelly came straight to Courtland, as though he had known he would be
waiting there for him. "I am going to take Gila down to Beechwood. You
will come with us?" There was entreaty in the tone, though it was very
quiet.
"Shall I take my car?"
"No. You will ride with me on the front seat. Is there a maid here that
I can hire to go with us? We can bring her back in the morning."
"I'll find out."
That was a silent ride through the late moonlight. The men spoke only
when it was necessary to keep the right road. Gila, huddled sullenly in
the back seat beside a dozing, gray-haired chambermaid, spoke not at
all. And who shall say what were her thoughts as hour after hour she sat
in her humiliation and watched the two men whom she had wronged so
deeply? Perhaps her spirit seethed the more violently within her silent,
angry body because she was not yet sure of Tennelly. Her tears and
explanations, her pleading little story of deceit and innocence, had not
wrought the charm upon him that they might had not Aquilar been known to
him for the past two weeks, a stranger who had been hanging about Gila,
and who had been encouraged against her lover's oft-repeated warnings.
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