An Ambitious Man

Whatever hope of escape from his self-imposed bondage Preston Cheney

had entertained when he began the note to his fiancee which the

Baroness had read, completely vanished during the weeks which

followed the death of Mrs Lawrence.

Mabel's nervous condition was alarming, and her father seemed to rely

wholly upon his future son-in-law for courage and moral support

during the trying ordeal. Like most large men of strong physique,

Judge Lawrence was as helpless as an infant in the presence of an

ailing woman; and his experience as the husband of a wife whose

nerves were the only notable thing about her, had given him an

absolute terror of feminine invalids.

Mabel had never been very fond of her mother; she had not been a

loving or a dutiful daughter. A petulant child and an irritable,

fault-finding young woman, who had often been devoid of sympathy for

her parents, she now exhibited such an excess of grief over the death

of her mother that her reason seemed to be threatened.

It was, in fact, quite as much anger as grief which caused her

nervous paroxysms. Mabel Lawrence had never since her infancy known

what it was to be thwarted in a wish. Both parents had been slaves

to her slightest caprice and she had ruled the household with a look

or a word. Death had suddenly deprived her of a mother who was

necessary to her comfort and to whose presence she was accustomed,

and her heart was full of angry resentment at the fate which had

dared to take away a member of her household. It had never entered

her thoughts that death could devastate HER home.

Other people lost fathers and mothers, of course; but that Mabel

Lawrence could be deprived of a parent seemed incredible. Anger is a

strong ingredient in the excessive grief of every selfish nature.

Preston Cheney became more and more disheartened with the prospect of

his future, as he studied the character and temperament of his

fiancee during her first weeks of loss.

But the net which he had woven was closing closer and closer about

him, and every day he became more hopelessly entangled in its meshes.

At the end of one month, the family physician decided that travel and

change of air and scene was an imperative necessity for Miss

Lawrence. Judge Lawrence was engaged in some important legal matters

which rendered an extended journey impossible for him. To trust

Mabel in the hands of hired nurses alone, was not advisable. It was

her father who suggested an early marriage and a European trip for

bride and groom, as the wisest expedient under the circumstances.