Her own Way by Eglanton Thorne

"OH, Juliet? How could you do it? " said Salome.

Juliet shrank back speechless. Had Salome spoken sharply, she might have found a reply; but Salome's gentle, sorrowful utterance was as different as possible from her usual mode of administering reproof, and it made Juliet feel how much more grave was this escapade than anything of which she had before been guilty.

"How could you be so cruel to poor mother? " continued Salome. "I should have thought you would have considered her; for I fancied you had some love for her, if for no one else. You have well-nigh broken her heart. I don't know that she will ever recover from the shock."

"Oh, Salome! She is not ill! " exclaimed Juliet, her voice rising almost to a scream.

"She is very ill," said Salome gravely. "We had to call in Dr. Gardner on Thursday night. She just went from one fainting fit into another."

Juliet stood like one stunned, every particle of colour fading from her face. She had to clutch at the table to keep herself from falling.

"Oh, mother! " she cried. "What have I done? " Then, forgetting all the thoughts that had gone before, she added quickly, "I must go to her, Salome. I must go at once."

"I must beg you not to think of that," said Salome, her manner unconsciously growing severe, though her heart had been touched by the sight of Juliet's altered, miserable looks. "Hannah's last words to me were-'Tell Juliet that the only thing she can do for us now is to keep away. ' You do not realise, perhaps, how you have disgraced us. There was an article in our local paper yesterday, giving a full account of Algernon Chalcombe's arrest in Paris, and mentioning your name as that of the young lady who had travelled with him. Hannah was terribly upset when she saw it at breakfast time. She declared that she could not go to the high school and face the girls, knowing that they would all be talking about it; but afterwards she compelled herself to go, for she said she had no excuse for shirking her duty, and no one had any right to blame her for your going wrong."

"Oh, don't, Salome, don't! I cannot bear it! " cried Juliet wildly, as she threw herself on the couch and buried her face amongst the pillows.

Salome said nothing, but her expression softened. She looked ready to cry herself, but controlled her feelings, laid aside her cloak, looked around the room, and began instinctively to set things in order.

Presently she came and stood beside the couch, and laid her cool hand on Juliet's burning forehead.

"Juliet dear," she said gently, "I am very sorry for you. Madame told me you were ill, and indeed you look ill, my poor little sister. I don't want to be hard on you. You have done very wrong, but-I think you have your punishment."

A deep sob from Juliet attested the truth of this assertion.

Salome sat down beside her, and it was some time ere she spoke again. When Juliet's sobs grew less frequent, she suggested gently, "Don't you think, Juliet, you would feel better if you told me all about it? I cannot understand how you came to take such a step."

Juliet did not at once respond to this invitation. It was hard; it was inexpressibly bitter to her pride to tell the story of her folly. But gradually Salome, who had become strangely gentle and patient, led her on to confess all-her belief in her own powers, her longing to win a dazzling success as a public singer, the subtle way in which the temptation to take her own way in defiance of her mother's wish had been presented to her, the manner in which she had suffered herself to be led on from one deceit to another, always trying to persuade herself that the end would justify the means, and that her mother would eventually not only forgive her, but be glad that she had acted as she had done.

Salome was deeply moved as she listened. She was filled with burning indignation against the crafty, unprincipled man who had taken advantage of Juliet's foolish vanity and utter ignorance of the world to serve his own ends, and had betrayed her into a course of action which might have ended for her far more disastrously than it had. Moreover, she was startled and moved to self-reproach by this revelation of the utterly hidden life Juliet had been living side by side with her own.

"Oh, Juliet! " she said. "If only I had known! If only you could have confided in me! But it was my fault; I was too hard on you. I was so shut up in myself, that I did not try to understand you. Oh, you cannot think how it hurts me now, to think that if I had been different, this might never have happened."

And to Juliet's amazement, Salome began to sob.

"Oh, don't, Salome! " said Juliet faintly; and then she began to sob too, but uttering broken words between her sobs.

"It wasn't your fault; it was just my own. I knew I was doing wrong, and I didn't care-I meant to take my own way-and I thought other things would come right somehow. But now I have made everybody wretched-and mother! Oh, I can never forgive myself. If mother should die, I can never be happy again!"