NOT UNDER THE LAW
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL’S
Charming and Wholesome Romances
The Story of a Whim
Re-Creations
Tomorrow About This Time
The Tryst
The City of Fire
Cloudy Jewel
Exit Betty
The Search
The Red Signal
The Enchanted Barn
The Finding of Jasper Holt
The Obsession of Victoria Gracen
Miranda
The Best Man
Lo, Michael!
Marcia Schuyler
Phoebe Deane
Dawn of the Morning
The Mystery of Mary
The Girl from Montana
The Big Blue Soldier
NOT UNDER THE
LAW
BY
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL
AUTHOR OF “MARCIA SCHUYLER”, “THE CITY OF FIRE”, ETC.
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1925
COPYRIGHT, 1924 AND 1925, BY THE GOLDEN RULE COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
NOT UNDER THE LAW
CHAPTER I
The kitchen door stood open wide, and the breathfrom the meadow blew freshly across Joyce Radway’shot cheeks and forehead as she passed hurriedly backand forth from the kitchen stove to the diningroomtable preparing the evening meal.
It had been a long, hard day and she was very tired.The tears seemed to have been scorching her eyelids sinceearly morning, and because her spirit would not let themout they seemed to have been flowing back into her hearttill its beating was almost stopped by the deluge. Somehowit had been the hardest day in all the two weeks sinceher aunt died; the culmination of all the hard times sinceAunt Mary had been taken sick and her son Eugene Masseybrought his wife and two children home to live.
To begin with, at the breakfast table Eugene hadsnarled at Joyce for keeping her light burning so long thenight before. He told her he couldn’t afford to pay electricbills for her to sit up and read novels. This wasmost unjust since he knew that Joyce never had any novelsto read, but that she was studying for an examinationwhich would finish her last year of normal school workand fit her for a teacher. But then her cousin was seldomjust. He took especial delight in tormenting her. Sometimesit seemed incredible that he could possibly be AuntMary’s son, he was so utterly unlike her in every way.But he resembled markedly the framed picture of his[6]father Hiram Massey, which hung in the parlor, whomJoyce could but dimly remember as an uncle who neversmiled at her.
She had controlled the tears then that sprang to hereyes and tried to answer in a steady voice:
“I’m sorry, Gene,