According to the Pattern
According to the Pattern
Grace Livingston Hill
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Fallen Idol
Chapter 2: A Trip Abroad
Chapter 3: An Important Letter
Chapter 4: Her Rival Disclosed
Chapter 5: An Unexpected Service
Chapter 6: The Campaign Opened
Chapter 7: A Challenge to the Enemy
Chapter 8: News Views of Things
Chapter 9: At Mrs. Sylvester’s
Chapter 10: The Plot Thickens
Chapter 11: At Cross Purposes
Chapter 12: More Complications
Chapter 13: In the Serpent’s Toils
Chapter 14: The Washburn Party
Chapter 15: Villainy Foiled
Chapter 16: Fighting Death
Chapter 17: The Ministry of Song
Chapter 18: An Unwelcome Visitor
Chapter 19: Getting Toward the Pattern
Chapter 20: In the Devil’s Grip
Chapter 21: After the Storm, Peace
Chapter 22: Reconciliation
Chapter 23: New Paths Opening
Chapter 24: Seaside and Heartside
Chapter 25: The Pattern Followed
About the Author
Chapter 1: A Fallen Idol
MRS. Claude Winthrop sat in her pretty sitting room alone under the lamplight making buttonholes. Her eyes were swimming in stringing tears that she would not for the world let fall. She felt as if a new law of attraction held them there to blind and torture her. She could not let them fall, for no more were left; they were burned up by the emotions that were raging in her soul, and if these tears were gone her eyeballs would surely scorch the lids. She was exercising strong control over her lips that longed to open in a groan that should increase until it reached a shriek that all the world could hear.
Her fingers flew with nervous haste, setting the needle in dainty stitches in the soft white dress for her baby girl. She had not supposed when she fashioned the little garment the day before and laid it aside ready for the finishing that she would think of its wearer to-night in so much agony. Ah, her baby girl, and her boy, and the older sister!
Almost the tears fell as another dart pierced her heart, but she opened her eyes the wider to hold them back and sat and sewed unwinkingly. She must not, must not cry. There was a momentous thinking to be done tonight. She had not had time to consider this awful thing since it had come upon her. Was she really sure beyond a doubt that it was so? How long ago was it that she took little Celia, happy and laughing, in the trolley to the park? How little she thought what she was going out to meet as she lifted the child from the car and smilingly humored her fancy to follow a by-path through the woods. How the little feet had danced and the pretty prattle had babbled on like a tinkling brook that needed no response, but was content with its own music.
And then they had come to the edge of the park drive where they could look down upon the world of fashion as it swept along, all rubber-tired and silver-mounted, in its best array. She had sighed a happy little sigh as she surveyed a costly carriage surmounted by two servants in white and dark-green livery and saw the discontented faces of the over-dressed man and woman who sat as far apart as the width of the seat would allow, and appeared to endure their drive as two dumb animals might if this were a part of their daily round. What if she rode in state like that with a husband such as he? She had shuddered and been conscious of thankfulness over her home and her husband. What if Claude did stay away from home a good deal of evenings! It was in the way of his business, he said, and she must be more patient. There would come a time by and by when he would have enough, so that they could live at their ease, and he need not go to the city ever any more. And into the midst of the bright dream she had conjured came little Celia’s prattle:
“Mamma, see! Papa tummin’! Pitty lady!” She had looked down curiously to see who it was that reminded the child of her father, and her whole being froze within her. Her breath seemed not to come at all, and she had turned so ghastly white that the baby put up her hand and touched her cheek, saying, “Mamma, pitty mamma! Poor mamma!”
For there on the seat of a high, stylish cart drawn by shining black horses with arched necks, and just below a tall elegant woman, who was driving, sat her husband. Claude! Yes, little Celia’s papa! Oh, that moment!
She forced herself to remember his face with its varying expressions as she had watched it till it was out of sight. There was no trouble in recalling it; it was burned into her soul with a red-hot iron. He had been talking to that beautiful woman as he used to talk to her when they were first engaged. That tender, adoring gaze; his eyes lovelighted. It was unmistakable! A heart-breaking revelation! There was no use trying to blind herself. There was not the slightest hope that he could come home and explain this away as a business transaction, or a plot between him and that other woman to draw her out into the world, or any of those pretty fallacies that might happen in books. It was all true, and she had known it instantly. It had been revealed to her as in a flash, the meaning of long months of neglect, supposed business trips, luncheons, and dinners at the club instead of the homecoming. She knew it. She ought to have seen it before.
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