Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/301

Rh rear of the house and commanded a view of the narrow, illy-lighted tunnel, along which towered the high, spiked walls of several scores of rear entrances. Proceeding along this tunnel, closely skirting the high spiked walls, Helen could make out the outline of a woman—a short stocky woman. Twice she stopped and looked back at Helen's roof.

Helen's first impulse was to raise the window—to call. She hesitated. It might not be she. The alley lights were dim and far away. And if it proved to be, was it wise to establish communication with her when she was taking such pains to avoid it? No. Laurel's mother knew best. The minute she became even a recognized shadow in her child's life she ran the risk of defeating the object of her sacrifice.

Laurel believed her mother was somewhere in South America and submitted without protest to the futility of locating her, submitted, too, without protest to the futility of breaking her determined silence. If she even suspected that her mother was near by in hiding somewhere, watching, looking on in the old eager anxious way, she would not be content till she had found her; and if she found her, and if it proved, indeed, that it was as Helen had persuaded her to hope, that her mother had married Alfred Munn for her sake, as likely as not—no, more likely than not—Laurel would insist upon returning to her mother under whatever circumstances. She was capable of it.

Laurel was almost her old self now. She smiled again, laughed again, shone and glowed again over old delights and joys, over new delights and joys.