"Louis' sisters helped me. You must not think they made a Cinderella of me. They really did their best, and I learned much from them that I have tried to pass on to you, my dearest."
Then had come the great tragedy. Just as Elizabeth had begun to hope she might measure up to all that was required of her, and just as she had found, too, that the great joy of motherhood was to be hers, it had been revealed to her that her husband loved another woman.
"It is not necessary to tell you how I found it out. But I knew. They had grown up together, and every one expected he would marry her. And she had expected it. Then he met me and was swept away by a sudden infatuation.
"There was nothing sordid about their—romance. They kept it on a high level. They had simply learned too late that they cared, and their lives were spoiled.
"Well, I adored your father. Even now, I can't think of him without an agony of mind. But I gave him up. I had a sort of sturdy pride which compelled it. He begged me to stay, but I insisted I would go away, and he could get a divorce on the grounds of desertion. I would not take any of his money. If he could not give me love—I would have nothing.
"So I came back here to Catherine and Olivia. Your father does not know he has a daughter. Yet, as the years have passed, I have begun to feel that I have no right to deprive you of the things he might do for you. As long as I live you are mine—but if anything happens to me, I want you to go to him. And I want you to remember this, that he has never wronged you
