Lillian's vow

This series contains the most popular books of the day. They are 12mos, printed on good paper, in large, clear type, and bound in handsome photogravure covers.

For sale by all newsdealers and booksellers, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of 25 cents each, or five copies for $1.00, by the publishers.

Removes Tan, Pimples, Freckles, Moth-Patches, Rash and Skin diseases, and every blemish on beauty, and defies detection. On its virtues it has stood the test of 54 years; no other has; and is so harmless we taste it to be sure it is properly made. Accept no counterfeit of similar name. The distinguished Dr. L. A. Sayre said to a lady of the haut ton (a patient): “As you ladies will use them, I recommend ‘Gouraud’s Cream’ as the least harmful of all the Skin preparations.” One bottle will last six months, using it every day.Gouraud’s Poudre Subtile removes superfluous hair without injury to the skin.

For sale by all Druggists and Fancy Goods Dealers throughout the U. S., Canadas, and Europe.

Also found in N. Y. City at R. H. Macy’s, Wanamaker’s, and other Fancy Goods Dealers. ☞ Beware of Base Imitations. $1,000 Reward for arrest and proof of any one selling the same.

This is the most comprehensive treatise on Palmistry and Hypnotism that has ever been issued.

GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS, Publishers,
P. O. Box 1781. 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York.

A hoarse groan, a stifled cry, then silence settled down. A clear, crisp wintery night, with the great city lying asleep beneath an opal-tinted sky, the rush and roar of the day’s turmoil temporarily suspended. It was late, and few people were abroad, especially upon this retired street, where a flickering, flaring electric light threw a yellow glare over the scene.

A man—old and white-haired, frail and feeble—was struggling in the grasp of strong hands, while a dark face, over which a broad-brimmed felt hat was slouched, so that his eyes and the upper part of his face were hidden from sight, bent over him, glaring down into the white, frightened countenance of his victim.

That this was no common case of garroting or highway robbery was apparent at a glance.

“Where is it?” hissed the assailant. “Give it to me at once, Gilbert Leigh, or, as sure as I live, I will kill you! Give me the book—the memorandum-book in your possession, with all its contents undisturbed! You must do it! You shall, Gilbert Leigh! You hold my liberty, my very life, in your hands. You must be mad to think that I would let you go until I have gained possession of the book! Give it to me, I say, or—”

The strong fingers of his right hand tightened their hold[Pg 6] upon the old man’s throat, while the other hand went into the inner pocket of the thick, warm overcoat that the old man wore. Something was quickly transferred from the pocket to that of the assailant—something which proved to be a long, leathern book fastened with a band of stout elastic. The dusky eyes under the slouched hat sparkled with gratification, and low under his breath he panted swiftly:

“I have it! The book is mine! And so will perish every clew to my guilt! I would die before the truth should be known! Why, this old man held proofs which would have ruined me and ousted me from my high position! I would—”

“Listen to me,” he went on, brokenly, as the hold of the other gradually relaxed from about his throat. “I have a word to say. In—in—my investigations among the books and papers of your office—investigations which I was commanded to make by my superiors—I have discovered that you are not only a forger and embezzler—a living disgrace to the time-honored name that you bear—but that you are—”

He bent his gray head and whispered a few words in the ears of the other man. With a savage howl, like a wild beast suddenly let loose upon its prey, he flashed about and grasped the old man once more by the throat. There was murder now in the dark eyes gleaming under the broad-brimmed felt hat.

“Die!” he panted, hoarsely, “you miserable old spy! Say your prayers now, for I am going to kill you!”

“By Jove! we’ll see about that!” cried a clear, ringing voice, as firm footsteps drew rapidly near, and a tall figure came to an abrupt halt. Crash! went a blow—a back-handed, powerful blow—which landed directly in the chest[Pg 7] of the would-be assassin. There was a dull thud as a dark form dropped to the pavement, then the electric light went out in that sudden and exasperating way which electric lights are prone to do upon the smallest provocation, and when it flared up once more, the limp, lifeless form upon the pavement and the tall figure of the new-comer bending over it were the only objects in sight. The new-comer, the man who had struck the blow, was tall and handsome, with pale, olive complexion, soft, dark eyes and waves of dark hair. A face good to look at anywhere. He stooped and peered into the old man’s upturned countenance, a delicate patrician face, with clear-cut features, and a broad forehead with a fringe of soft white hair.

“I’m afraid he’s dead, poor fellow!” said the young man, ruefully. “Well, of course it will be another item for the ‘Daily Thunderer,’ and I wouldn’t be a hard-working journalist, with my fortune all to make, if I did not welcome an item.”

He was speaking lightly, as one accustomed to such scenes, but there was an under-current of feeling in his voice which revealed the kindly heart beating in his breast.

Silence for a moment, during which time the young man proceeded to tear open the old man’s shirt-collar, and lift the white head to give him a little air.

There was no sign of life. The chest did not move, the white hands lay limp and lifeless at his side.

Tramp, tramp, down the street, swift and straight, came the echo of heavy footfalls. A moment more the gleam of a silver badge, a blue uniform, and a gruff voice demanding sternly:

“Come, now! What’s all this? Why”—in a tone of satisfaction—“if it ain’t Mr. Lyndon!”

“Jack Lyndon, of the ‘Daily Thunderer,’ at your service.[Pg 8] Your name is McElroy, I believe? Yes; well, I found this old man just now in the grasp of a garroter, highway robber, whatever you may choose to call him. I struck the fellow a blow, he came down with a thud; but he got off somehow, and the old man is, I believe—McElroy, can he be dead?”

McElroy laid his hand upon the heart of the prostrate man, and a swift look of horror dawned upon his face, as the electric light flared up brightly, revealing the features plainly.

“Good heavens! it’s Mr. Leigh! Dear, dear! that’s awful now! And poor Miss Lillian, it will just kill her! I think, Mr. Lyndon—I really think and fear that the old man is gone! If it’s so, I tell you what, I wouldn’t like to face Lillian Leigh with his body. Mr. Lyndon, you never knew such a case in your life of father and daughter so wrapped up in each other that they could hardly bear to be out of each other’s sight. You see, there ain’t none of the Leigh family left but Miss Lillian and her father. She does type-writing at home, and old Mr. Leigh himself was an expert accountant, and some folks say a kind of spy in the big commercial house of Raleigh & Raleigh—to look after the interests of the firm in a quiet way, you know; it’s the biggest commercial concern in the whole state—to watch over slippery young clerks and wild fellows, to keep an eye upon all the employees, in fact. A number of them—I speak the plain truth—are sons of the best families here. They need watching, Mr. Lyndon”—shaking his head slowly and dubiously—“sure’s you are born, they need watching.”

All this time he had been chafing the thin, white hands, and trying to force a little brandy between the old man’s clinched teeth. He laid the white head back against Lyndon’s knee at last with a low sigh.

“’Tain’t no use! It really seems like ’tain’t no use, Mr. Jack. I—I—see—”

He arose to his feet and pointed to a row of buildings, all alike, with an air of quiet respectability. Their rows of shuttered windows, each house with its high, arched porch and white stone steps—the neat brass door-plates at every door—told, without words, that this was a neighborhood of boarding-houses and “apartments to let.” The policeman lifted his club and pointed to a side window in the second story of one of the houses, where a faint light gleamed like a star. Even while they gazed, the blind was opened softly, and some one peered out into the night below. McElroy groaned.

“Them’s their rooms up there, Mr. Lyndon!” he said, softly. “Who is going to bring the old man into the house? And who—” he flashed about with a tragic gesture—“Good God! Who’s going to tell Miss Lillian?”

The window-blind upstairs was closed softly, and the watching figure disappeared. A strange pang shot through Jack Lyndon’s big, honest heart. Years afterward, he was wont to look back upon that moment, and say that it was a presentiment of what was to come.

“Poor girl! My heart aches for her!” he muttered. “It will be a terrible blow to bear.” And then, before he scarcely realized it, Jack Lyndon found himself standing upon the white stone steps of No. 3 ——, McElroy at his side, ringing the door-bell in a peremptory summons. One! boomed from the tower of a church not far away. One! repeated a silvery-toned time-piece somewhere within the silent house at whose door they were standing. Silence—utter silence—broken at length by the opening of an upper window, and a masculine voice demanded sternly who was there, and what they wanted at that time of night.

A few words made clear the sad situation. The window was closed, and a little later the house-door was opened, and the gas-light burning dimly in the hall turned up to a cheery blaze. They bore him into the wide hall and laid him, limp and lifeless, upon a sofa there. Somebody telephoned[Pg 10] for the nearest physician, and a group of half-dressed men and women gathered round the sofa, gazing, with horror-distended eyes, upon the sad spectacle. Then the physician bustled in; five minutes’ examination, and the verdict came. Gilbert Leigh was dead. He had died from the effects of strangulation.

Somebody asked the question in an awe-stricken voice. Nobody essayed to reply. It was answered in an unexpected way. The opening of a door above stairs; a hush of solemn silence; then the rustle of a woman’s draperies; flying footsteps down the broad stairs descending into the hall below, and, before any one could realize the situation, a slight figure, in a flowing robe of white cashmere, with a cloud of golden hair streaming over her shoulders, dashed into their midst, and fell upon her knees by the sofa, while a pair of soft, white arms went around the old man’s neck.

“Papa!” One shrill cry which cut to the heart of every person present. “Papa! Oh, papa, papa! open your eyes and look at me just once! Speak to me, papa—just one word! Oh, papa, papa, papa!”

Jack Lyndon ventured to her side at last, and laid his hand—a strong, white hand—lightly upon the bowed golden head.

“Miss Leigh”—in a voice that quivered with sympathy—“try to be brave!”

She lifted a small, childish face—a beautiful face, with perfectly chiseled features, and eyes so large and deep and dark that they looked like black velvet.

“Do you—know—what is wrong, sir?” she faltered, feebly. “Papa went out this evening—down to the office. He had papers to attend to. Papa never leaves me alone when he can help it; but he found that he had forgotten his memorandum-book. It contained business relating to the private affairs of his employers which was priceless. Papa often said that if he lost the book he could never[Pg 11] enter his employers’ presence again or expect to be treated with confidence. I know that he would defend the book, if need be, with his life. Sir”—she arose to her feet with quiet dignity—“if that book is gone from his body it has been stolen, and he has been attacked while defending it.”

Then with a swift burst of passionate grief she flashed about, and fell upon her knees once more, winding her arms about her father’s neck; and then, drawing the cold face down to her own, she laid her white cheek against his.

“How cold you are, papa!” in a low, tense voice inexpressibly pathetic. “You were never so cold before. What is the matter, dear? You are weak and ill and faint, and—”

Her eyes fell for the first time upon the great purple marks about his throat—the cruel marks of the assassin’s strong fingers. She started up with a bitter cry.

“What—what does this mean?” she panted, pointing to the tell-tale marks. “He is dead—dead!”

The truth had come to her at last. He had been murdered. The book had been taken from him, and he had died in its defense.

“Oh, papa! papa! speak, and tell your little Lily this awful secret! My papa, who has gone from me forever—tell me, tell me! You will come back to me, papa! If disembodied spirits can return to earth, I know that you will come to me! Speak, papa! Oh, my papa! All I had to love in the great, cold, cruel world, speak, and tell me—who did this awful deed?”

And then a strange occurrence took place. Even the physician could not repress an exclamation of surprise. The dead man’s lips parted slowly, and a few drops of blood oozed from them and trickled down upon the snowy beard. To those present it seemed for a moment—so wrought up were they by the awful tragedy—that Gilbert Leigh had indeed attempted to speak; that in answer to the pitiful beseeching[Pg 12] of his child, the dumb lips had attempted to frame a reply and utter the name of his murderer.

The girl’s pale face froze into an icy calm. She lifted her right hand with a swift gesture, upon her face a look which made the spectators hold their breath in speechless awe.

“Hear me!” she said, in the same tense voice, “and bear witness to what I say! I take no oath, I bind myself by no pledge, I make no wild assertions or prophecies, but, I say this: my father’s murderer shall yet be found! It may be years before it comes to pass; but sooner or later, the man who took Gilbert Leigh’s life in this base, dastardly manner, shall be found and punished! And when the hour comes in which I shall stand face to face with him, when his guilt is exposed and his crime revealed, may God have mercy upon him, for I shall have none!”

She sunk upon her knees once more at her dead father’s side, like a pallid, sad-eyed ghost; and when morning stole in at the shuttered windows, she was crouching there still. Not a tear had she shed; not another word had passed her lips; but there was that in her pale young face which made all who saw her afraid.

“Which shall I wear, mamma, the pale blue silk, with white lace and pearl ornaments, or the new amber satin with hand-painted panels and black lace overdress looped with diamonds? Ah, yes, that will be the handsomest and most striking! And I shall wear all the Raleigh diamonds!”

“But, Rosamond, all the Raleigh diamonds would be too many jewels for a single toilet. It would be bad taste, my dear; yet, after all”—Mrs. Raleigh bent her stately head with its silver-gray puffs in a meditative way—“it would[Pg 13] be something unique! What a woman requires nowadays in fashionable society is to look as odd and unusual as possible. But, Rosamond, we live in a great city, and our fashionable society is controlled by—”

“The woman I hate!” burst forth Rosamond, vindictively, with an angry gesture. “She is my own cousin, but I hate her, hate her, hate her! I tell you, mamma, the day upon which Cousin Lenore Vane made her grand marriage was a bad day for her as well as myself! When she became the wife of a senator I knew then that my reign was over—that I could never surpass her in position, in social triumph. And since that day I have hated her as I have never hated any living creature, and I shall hate her till I die! To see her surrounded by her satellites is perfectly nauseating to me, and the absurd flatteries lavished upon her—why, in her presence I am hardly noticed—nearly drive me mad!”

“I know—I understand”—soothingly; “but never mind, Rosamond! You are bound to make a grand marriage some day. She is the wife of Senator Van Alstyne, it is true; but in point of wealth you are—”

“The daughter of Grafton Raleigh, of the great firm of Raleigh & Raleigh!” interrupted Rosamond, haughtily. “No business house in the whole United States holds a higher or more enviable position! Do not forget that, mamma!”

Rosamond Raleigh began to pace up and down the luxurious room, her delicate blonde face flushed slightly, the big, china-blue eyes drawn close together with the ugly scowl which puckered her white forehead, her small, jeweled hands clinched angrily. She came to a halt at length, and her face wore a very unlovely expression in its jealous wrath.

“The wife of Senator Van Alstyne! And what of that!” she pouted, angrily. “He is a great, coarse, pompous creature, most repugnant to me, or to any civilized[Pg 14] taste. If there was any use in wondering over such matters in this corrupt age, I would marvel exceedingly that he should ever have been made a member of the United States Senate! But these affairs are unfathomable. As for Lenore, she was always sly and underhand. I know that she has never cared for her big, red-faced senator, and only married him to gratify her vanity, and—mamma, say what you like, you can never change my opinion—there is a secret in Lenore Vane’s life. And I believe that, to cover up this secret—this bad, black, unpleasant secret—she married Senator Van Alstyne!”

Mrs. Raleigh’s face was pale as death, and in her gray-blue eyes something like terror.

“You are talking wildly, daughter,” she returned, trying to steady her voice. “You could know nothing concerning Lenore’s past. She is seven years your senior. You were twenty-five last summer,” she added, musingly.

“Hush!” Rosamond turned quite pale. “The idea of your telling my age right out like that! Anyone in the next room might have heard every word! But, speaking of Lenore’s position, I am going to shine her down to-morrow night at her own reception! In point of beauty she can not hold a candle to me! With her pale, colorless face, and big, dark eyes, and all that assumption of hauteur! Bah! I am sick of all the silly flatteries lavished upon that woman! Ah-h!” hissing the word forth vindictively, “if only it were in my power to unmask her, to expose her secret—whatever it may be! And, mamma, listen, and believe me: I am convinced that the day is coming when I shall triumph—when I shall cast her down from her high pedestal into the very dust at my feet! Oh, what a day that will be!”

“Then I will pay back the debt of hatred that I owe, with compound interest,” hissed the girl, paying no heed[Pg 15] to her mother’s warning voice; “and so, mamma”—changing to a lighter tone—“I shall go to Madame Lenore Van Alstyne’s reception to-morrow night, wearing the Raleigh diamonds and that incomparable amber satin. You know me well enough to be sure that I am going to have my own way!”

Mrs. Raleigh sighed as she turned away, while Rosamond crossed the room to a door which communicated with a small octagonal apartment, and opened it hastily. Her face was still harsh and angry, and there was a glitter in the blue eyes which boded ill for some one.

A young girl, a pale-faced, dark-eyed girl, seated at a window in the tiny room, busily engaged in painting upon a piece of amber satin, laid down her brush, and turned swiftly.

“Do I want you? Humph! Of course I would be sure to call you if I did not want you! That goes without saying! Have you finished the last panel of the amber satin?”

“Not quite.” The girl’s voice was slow and hesitating. “My heart hurts me so this morning that I could not work quite so fast as usual, and so—”

The voice was low and ominous; Rosamond Raleigh was trembling with rage. Slowly Noisette obeyed the command, and entered the outer apartment, in one small, shapely hand the amber satin panel, exquisitely painted with bunches of scarlet poppies, and long, clinging tendrils of pale-green leaves. It was the work of a true artist, and Rosamond Raleigh knew it—knew that her hand-painted fans and costly bits of silk and satin were the envy of half her set. And she realized perfectly that she was getting all this exquisite work done for such a mere nothing—the poor girl was a dependent upon the Raleighs—that it was a positive sin.

One glance at the girl’s pale face and heavy, red-rimmed eyes, but not a tinge of pity stirred Miss Raleigh’s cold heart. The heart of a fashionable woman, immersed in dress and society, is colder and harder than stone.

“Not done yet,” in a cutting voice, “and the reception at Senator Van Alstyne’s to come off to-morrow night, and I must have that dress to wear. I will have it; do you hear me? That painting must be done, though it kills you to do it.”

“But my heart hurts me awfully,” she continued, “and sometimes I am obliged to stop and rest; and it is so difficult to breathe. Everything seems to get dark before me, and I feel afraid. And besides,” hesitatingly, “the odor of the paints is disagreeable.”

“Well, have you finished your complaints?” sneered Miss Raleigh, pitilessly. “Because if you have I would be pleased to see you go to work. I think I have done enough for you in taking you out of the orphan asylum and giving you a good home. But you are getting so lazy that you do not earn your salt. Go back to the sewing-room at once, and have that panel finished before three o’clock, or”—she drew her breath with a little hiss, her blue eyes glaring angrily into the girl’s white, pain-distorted face—“it will be bad for you, my lady,” she added, sharply.

Noisette bent her head slightly, and, taking the panel, returned to the room that she had left, closing its door behind her. Her face was white and rigid, and one hand clutched at her heart as though in pain.

“Heaven help me!” murmured the poor girl, under her breath. “I am dying, and she knows it. Ah, better for me if she had left me in the asylum. At least they have some mercy there.”

She sunk into the low seat at the window and took the brush in her cold, clammy hand.

The brush began to move slowly, uncertainly over the glinting, amber satin; at length it fell upon the dainty fabric, leaving a big red stain. It looked like heart’s blood.

The girl started up as though some one had struck her a blow; her head fell forward. A sensation stole over her like floating dreamily through space. The pale lips parted, and one word escaped them:

Rosamond Raleigh heard her mother’s voice in tones of wildest excitement and alarm an hour or two later, and arising from the satin couch, where she had been reading a French novel, she hastened to the octagonal room whence the sound proceeded.

Her mother was standing beside the marble table, upon which the painting materials were scattered, and Noisette’s head had fallen forward and rested against the marble top of the table. But the first object that caught Rosamond’s eye as she entered the room was the spot of fresh paint upon the amber satin panel.

“You have ruined my dress!” she shrieked, rushing to the side of the poor girl, and seizing her rudely by the shoulder; “you have literally ruined it! But you shall pay for it! I swear it! I will make you suffer for this! Mamma!”—falling back with a terrified cry—“what is the matter?”

Noisette’s head had fallen limply to one side, as the rude fingers closed down upon the thin shoulders in that cruel grip; her eyes were half open, set, staring and glassy; her lips were parted, showing the white teeth with a ghastly[Pg 18] expression. Noisette was dead! Heart disease had stricken her down while at her work.

The orphan girl’s troubles were ended. She had died at her post, engaged in a thankless task.

For just a moment the hard heart of Rosamond Raleigh quailed; she sunk into a seat and covered her face with her hands.

“Mamma!” glancing up at last, “is she really dead? Is there no hope—no mistake? Why, this is awful! And it will get into the newspapers. I wouldn’t have Jack Lyndon get hold of the affair, not for a fortune! I’m more than half afraid of his sharp tongue and sharper pen. Can we do nothing?” arising, and, with evident repugnance, approaching the still figure in the chair.

Mrs. Raleigh shook her head. She had seen Death in too many forms not to know his dread presence beyond a doubt.

“She has been dead an hour, I should think,” Mrs. Raleigh observed; “but for form’s sake I will send for a physician. And then—oh, dear!—there will be a coroner’s inquest, and—”

“Never! Not in this house! Mamma, just think of the publicity! We must manage to avoid it in some way.”

And they did. In their high position, and with plenty of money at their command—alas! what will not money do?—all was speedily arranged. The body of the girl was arrayed for its last resting-place, and borne into an unused room, where it was placed in a plain coffin, to be buried quietly away in the nearest cemetery early in the morning.

The arrangements all concluded, Mrs. Raleigh locked the door of the room where the dead girl lay sleeping so peacefully, and turned to go back to the drawing-room. But at that very moment the door-bell rang, there was a brief pause in the spacious entrance-hall, then the sweeping of silken skirts coming to the wing of the house where[Pg 19] the dead girl lay. Mrs. Raleigh started nervously. A moment later she was face to face with Lenore Van Alstyne. Tall and slender, with great, melancholy dark eyes, and a face of marble pallor, she was very beautiful, and—you could read it at a glance—a woman who would die for pride’s sake. Mrs. Raleigh could not control her surprise at sight of her niece.

“I heard that Noisette was dead,” began Lenore at once; “so I drove around to see if I can do anything. Let me see her, Aunt Helen.”

“Death is seldom a pleasant sight, Aunt Helen!” she returned, coldly. “I have always liked the girl; she was very unassuming, and certainly industrious. Let me go in, Aunt Helen. See, I have brought her some flowers—her favorite lilies.”

So, though much against her will, Mrs. Raleigh unlocked the door, and they entered the chamber of death, followed shortly by Rosamond.

Lenore laid her lilies upon the open coffin, and then, moved by a sudden impulse, sunk down upon her knees beside the dead girl. Silence fell over all, and the moments passed, and still she knelt there. Mrs. Raleigh turned to her daughter.

“Rosamond, this is no place for you,” she began in a stage whisper; but she stopped short in unfeigned surprise at sight of the look upon Rosamond’s face.

“Mamma,” drawing her mother aside and speaking in an almost inaudible tone, lest their visitor should hear, “look! Did you ever see a more perfect resemblance than those two faces? In life we never observed it, but death brings the truth startlingly forward. Noisette is the very image of Lenore!”

“Nonsense! What absurdity, child! It is only one of those accidental resemblances which one stumbles across[Pg 20] very often. Ah! there; she is going at last, thank Heaven! I shall never feel comfortable until that body is out of the house,” she added, plaintively.

The body was out of the house early the next morning, buried away with scant ceremony, and soon forgotten.

Mrs. Raleigh sat in her dainty boudoir a few days later. The reception at Senator Van Alstyne’s was a thing of the past, but Rosamond had been conspicuous by her absence.

“If I can not wear the amber satin I will not go at all,” the willful beauty had declared with an emphatic stamp of a small foot in a dainty bronze slipper; “but I shall make capital out of this horrid affair. Our set shall believe that I remained at home out of respect for my protégée’s memory, and not because I was disappointed in my dress. And I must find another girl in Noisette’s place—I believe I will advertise for a companion.”

And so she did—and fate decreed that this advertisement should attract poor Lillian Leigh’s notice, and she resolved to apply for the position. So Mrs. Raleigh, upon this particular morning of which I write, was interviewing Lillian, who had ventured to call at the Raleigh mansion in response to the advertisement. A slender, black-robed figure, she looked like a mere child as she told her pitiful story.

“I want employment, madame,” she said, lifting her great, sad brown eyes to the cold, high-bred face before her. “The old work—type-writing—has failed me; and besides, I prefer to leave my present home. I can not endure to remain among the old familiar scenes. I wish to lead a retired life, and yet I have my own living to make.”

A cold, critical glance swept the black-robed figure from head to foot, then Mrs. Raleigh’s slow, languid voice observed:

“You may make a trial of us, if you like. Of course[Pg 21] we can not pay much to a novice, but after a time you will receive a good salary.”

So the arrangements were speedily completed, and for a pitifully small sum Lillian Leigh agreed to act as “companion” to Miss Rosamond Raleigh, little dreaming of what lay before her, and that fate was leading her blindly on. Coming down the broad staircase, the first evening of her life at the Raleigh mansion, Lillian came suddenly face to face with a tall, dark, brigandish-looking man who had just entered the house. One glance, and he fell back, clutching wildly at a carved Gothic chair which stood near, his dark face grown pale as death.

He glanced furtively about him. There was no one in the hall—no one within hearing, apparently. He caught her hand with a hasty gesture.

“I must know you better, Miss Leigh,” he said, swiftly, his evil eye studying every feature of the pale, indignant face. “I am Richard Raleigh, only son and heir of the Raleighs,” he added, with a smile.

As he spoke he drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and a card fluttered with it to the floor. Lillian stooped and picked it up. It was a small photograph, and—could it be possible?—it was a photograph of her own face! Trembling like a leaf, she flashed indignantly upon him.

“How dare you!” she was beginning, wildly; but, checking her agitation, she went on, swiftly: “Mr. Raleigh, where did you obtain this photograph? I must know! It is one that my father carried in his pocket. There can be no mistake. See, here are his initials, ‘G. L.,’ on the back of the card. Mr. Richard Raleigh, I demand an answer. Where did you get this picture?”

For just a moment Richard Raleigh quailed like a craven form before the angry blast in those fearless dark eyes.

“My dear young lady, you must be mad!” he cried, mockingly. “Ah, yes; it is one that I picked up down-town in the office of the ‘Thunderer.’ Jack Lyndon, one of the staff, had it. Seems that he was present when your father’s body was found; the photograph fell from his pocket, and Lyndon picked it up. I saw it, fell in love with it, begged Jack to relinquish it, which he did; and so I have it. Are you satisfied, Miss Leigh?”

She was trembling like a reed in the wind, her brown eyes flashing like fire at the insulting narrative.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” she pouted at last. “Mr. Lyndon is a gentleman—a true, noble-hearted, honorable gentleman! He was my best friend when papa died—was murdered,” she added, bleakly. “Mr. Raleigh, I don’t care what you say; you shall not slander Mr. Jack Lyndon in my presence. He is the noblest man whom I have ever met.”

The girl turned swiftly about; she had not heard the street door open. A tall form stood at her side; a pair of grave, kindly eyes gazed into the girl’s excited face, as, hat in hand, Jack Lyndon bowed low before Miss Raleigh’s companion, waiting-maid, and general factotum.

“God bless you for your championship,” he added, softly. An angry light overspread Richard Raleigh’s face, but he bowed with tolerable civility as his eyes met Jack Lyndon’s.

“Ah, good-evening, Lyndon,” he sneered. “May I[Pg 23] inquire the nature of the business which has conferred upon the house of Raleigh the honor of your presence?”

“A note of invitation from Miss Rosamond Raleigh brings me here,” he said, coldly. “It is a matter of small importance to me whether I call or not, Mr. Raleigh, but a lady’s written request is not to be neglected.”

Lillian had slipped the photograph of her own face into her pocket, and glided away to finish the errand which had brought her thither. A little later, passing through the great hall once more, on her way upstairs, she caught a glimpse of a pretty little tableau: Rosamond Raleigh, in the music-room, seated at the grand piano, attired in an artistic robe of white surah, with pink roses at her throat and one half-open bud nestling in her dyed, blonde hair. She was most artistically got up, and as the small, jeweled hands swept the white keys, the big blue eyes were lifted, with a sweet, childish expression, to the grave, handsome face of Jack Lyndon, as he stood beside the instrument. What was Rosamond’s object in inviting him there? he asked himself again and again. He was only a poor journalist; rapidly rising in his profession, it is true, but not worthy to compare, in point of wealth and position, with the daughter of Grafton Raleigh the millionaire. And it never once occurred to Jack that the proud, haughty society woman might have found a heart beating under her silken bodice, even as Undine found her soul.

Lillian, passing through the hall, saw the couple at the piano, for the door was open, and a strange pang shot through her heart as she passed hastily upstairs to attend to her duties. There were guests invited to the Raleigh mansion that night, and Jack had found himself included in the invitations, while, much to his surprise, the tiny scented note contained a P.S., carefully underscored:

“Senator and Mrs. Van Alstyne will look in at our reception to-night,” she announced. “You know that Mrs. Van Alstyne is my cousin? I thought that you might like to describe her costume when you write up our reception for to-morrow’s paper,” with a little laugh.

Jack bowed and smiled his thanks, and then the door-bell rang, and the first arrival was announced.

Who that saw Lenore Van Alstyne that night will ever forget her? She wore a trailing robe of shimmering pink satin, with a V-shaped corsage draped with costly white lace and a great cluster of snow-white marguerites. Not a jewel did she wear, not even a flower in the massive coils of silky dark hair. She was adorned by her own stately beauty and gracious sweetness—jewels which no money can purchase.

It was a grand affair, though only a small party, for Rosamond disliked a crowd. The evening wore away—that evening during which Miss Raleigh devoted herself to the entertainment of Jack Lyndon as sedulously as, in her character of hostess, she dare venture.

Late in the evening Rosamond went upstairs to the pretty octagonal room which adjoined her own chamber to get a small painting which Jack Lyndon had expressed a desire to see and with which she would not trust a servant. She was smiling softly to herself as she ran lightly up the stairs and laid her hand upon the silver door-knob of the little room where poor Noisette had passed so many lonely hours, and—yes, where she had died.

A strange chill crept over Rosamond Raleigh’s heart at the recollection, and the smile faded from her lips.

The door swung slowly open, and she crossed the threshold. She started back with a low, frightened cry. Some one had extinguished the gas; but the moonlight streaming in at the window, whose shade was not yet drawn, revealed[Pg 25] the interior of the pretty room, and rested in a pearly pathway of light upon the figure seated at the window—the childish little figure, with a pathetic droop to the small head, bent, as usual, over the painting materials. An awful horror crept over the fashionable beauty as she stood there.

How still everything was! The room was too far removed from the drawing-rooms below for any sound of mirth and revelry to reach it. Sometimes a quivering, wailing burst of music, sobbing itself into silence, floated up the staircase, and made a ghostly echo in the room, where—She glanced once more toward that pathetic little figure bending over the painting, and Rosamond realized, with a shiver of horror, that it was no living creature upon which she gazed. An inarticulate cry passed her lips, as she ventured a little nearer. Was it Noisette’s spirit which sat there in the moonlight, working out the hard task? Rosamond saw that the shadowy fingers which grasped the brush were painting away at the amber satin panel. Painting—painting! but never to finish. The strokes of the brush up and down left no trace; the panel was just as Noisette had left it when death had called her, when the brush had fallen from her nerveless grasp, leaving the big red stain that looked like heart’s blood. Trembling, gasping for breath, Miss Raleigh turned and fled from the haunted room. She was no weak-minded, hysterical girl, to go in nervous spasms over a sight which she well knew she could never convince the world that she had witnessed. She fled precipitately, however, nor paused to take breath until she found herself down in the brilliantly lighted drawing-room once more, and explaining, in a breathless, laughing, altogether charming fashion, that the picture must be mislaid, for certainly it was not to be found. And no one but her mother observed the set expression that had dawned upon her face, and the look of nameless terror in her eyes.

She glanced up with a start, to see a tall, liveried footman standing at her side.

“I don’t like to trouble you,” he went on, hesitatingly, “but it’s an old woman who will not be denied. She is down in the housekeeper’s room, and if you wouldn’t mind seeing her a moment, Miss Rosamond—”

With a haughty gesture, Rosamond waved him aside. A little later she was standing in the housekeeper’s cozy sitting-room, before a snowy-haired, wrinkled old woman with mild black eyes. She was bent nearly double over the heavy oaken staff which she clutched with two skinny hands; but at sound of the opening door, and the swish! swish! of silken drapery, she lifted her head, and her bold, black eyes met the glance of interrogation in Miss Raleigh’s cold blue orbs.

“I am told that you have guests here to-night, Miss Raleigh,” she began, in a low tone. “I am a dabbler in the occult and mysterious—I am a clairvoyant. I can read the future, unmask the present, and,” with an upward glance of her great black eyes, “expose the secrets of the past. Don’t look so incredulous, lady—I can do it!”

“Permission to exhibit my strange powers before your guests,” returned the woman, promptly. “I am very old, and it is my only means of earning a livelihood. Let me go into your drawing-room, and I promise to surprise and astound you. Stay a moment, lady. Is there any one present whom you dislike—whom you hate?”

“There is. Ah, if you could unmask her, if you could show me her past and expose her secret, so carefully guarded, I would make you rich for life!”

The old woman bent her head, and her lips moved as though speaking, yet she uttered no word.

“Come!” said Rosamond, moved by a sudden impulse. “I will give you permission to exhibit your powers. But if there is any villainy hidden under it all, if you have a sinister object in coming here to-night, I will have you punished to the full extent of the law.”

“Trust me, lady. You will never regret it,” she returned. Low under her breath she was muttering to herself in a broken, disjointed way, as she followed Miss Raleigh to the drawing-room:

“At last! At last! The hour for which I have longed is here! Oh, to see her once again—to—”

They had reached the drawing-room door. A few words of explanation, and all the company gathered in eager excitement about the old woman, who had sunk into a low seat and sat as still as a statue. At last:

“Murdered!” she cried, in a shrill voice, which penetrated to every corner. “Murdered! Poor Gilbert Leigh! My friends, the guilty wretch who took that old man’s life is present within this very room.”

There was a stifled shriek, followed by a heavy fall; the gas-lights had gone out suddenly, leaving the great room in darkness, and an awful silence settled over the scene.

Some one lighted the gas in a moment, and its yellow rays revealed a pale-faced, terrified group. Lillian, who had been sent to bring Mrs. Raleigh a fan, was standing in the open door of the library, pale as marble, one hand clutching the white satin fan with its delicate spray of wild roses, the handiwork of the girl who had gone to her long rest such a short time before; the other hand, cold and[Pg 28] trembling, pressed tightly over her wildly throbbing heart; her big, dark eyes, dilated with horror, fixed blankly before her. Richard Raleigh crouched in a corner, glaring about him like a wild beast suddenly brought to bay, and prone upon the velvet-carpeted floor Lenore Van Alstyne lay in a dead swoon, and the old woman—fortune-teller or whatever she might be—had disappeared.

For a few moments everybody stood staring helplessly about them, too overcome by the shock of the surprise—the audacity of the affair—to collect their scattered faculties.

With a muttered execration, Richard Raleigh strode over to the door and caught Lillian by the arm.

“You are responsible for all this jugglery!” he hissed, his angry black eyes devouring the pale face of the shrinking girl. “You are to blame, Lillian Leigh, and rest assured that you shall suffer for it!”

The stately little head was crested proudly, and the dark, flashing eyes gave him back scorn for scorn.

“Take your hand from my arm, Mr. Raleigh!” the low, level voice commanded, calmly. “How dare you touch me? And as for your insulting words, you shall answer for them! My father—”

Good heavens! what had she been about to say? It came home to her, with a sharp, keen pang of bitter memory, that she who had never before been separated from her father, her protector and defender, was all alone. She had no father now—never any more! She had been so accustomed to look to him for help, for love, for protection, that for a brief moment she had lost sight of the cruel truth. Her heart turned to her father as the sunflower turns to the sun—and—she had no father now! With one swift, lightning stroke of memory the poor girl came back to the consciousness of her loss—that bitter, irretrievable loss—and she saw the blank, empty future stretched out before her eyes—without her father! Ah![Pg 29] cruel, cruel fate! To be bereft of his tender care—his loving words of counsel—his kindly guidance!

For just a moment the orphan girl forgot even Richard Raleigh’s dreaded presence, as the full knowledge of her desolation rushed over her heart like a swirling flood. But still Richard Raleigh gazed with bold eyes into her face, and still the stern, dark hand, crowned with a glittering diamond, clutched the girl’s white arm.

“Let go my arm, sir!” she commanded once more, in a low, scornful tone. “How dare you insult me?”

“Mr. Raleigh will be good enough to obey this lady’s command!” said a cool, low voice close by, and Lillian, turning swiftly, saw Jack Lyndon at her side. Not another word; but Raleigh’s grasp relaxed, and he loosened his hold; then, with a sneer, he turned upon his heel and left the room.

There was a great deal of excitement over Lenore, and, therefore, this scene had been almost unobserved. Senator Van Alstyne bustled forward, and lifting his wife’s graceful form as though she had been an infant, placed her carefully upon a sofa, while a group of pale, excited people gathered around, and restoratives were brought. But one pair of eyes had watched the scene between Lillian and Jack Lyndon—one pair of steely orbs, glinting now with anger too deep for words—and a white-robed figure, which hovered ever in the vicinity of Jack Lyndon, was trembling with excitement and jealous wrath.

“I will send that girl away to-morrow as surely as I live,” muttered Rosamond, low under her breath. “I will not be tormented by the sight of her any longer. And yet,” with a strange sinking of the heart, or “the muscular viscus” which did duty for that organ with Miss Rosamond Raleigh—“it would be just my luck to have Jack Lyndon fall desperately in love with her and marry her if I were to send her away—cast her adrift without a home. Oh, dear! was any woman ever so tormented before?[Pg 30] First, I must lose my waiting-maid—ugh! I can’t get Noisette out of my mind!—and now Lillian gives me trouble. First one maid and then the other. One thing certain, and upon that point I shall be adamant hereafter: Lillian Leigh shall not be allowed to show herself among my guests. What evil genius sent her here at this particular juncture? Oh, yes!” catching sight of the white satin toy in the girl’s trembling hand, “mamma’s fan! It is the very last fan that Noisette painted. Ugh! there it is again. I can not forget for a moment. And now I think that Mr. Lyndon has had quite enough to say to my servant. I intend to put a stop to it.”

She glided swiftly over to the retired corner near the door where Lillian stood, while Jack Lyndon bent his handsome head and spoke in low, eager tones. He was learning the reason for her sudden and unexpected appearance at the Raleigh mansion.

“It is no place for you, Miss Leigh,” he said, gravely; “we must try to find you more suitable employment; and—and (pardon me, but I can not refrain from a few words of warning) it is better for you not to remain longer under the same roof with—”

“Lillian!” Miss Raleigh’s sharp, cutting voice broke in upon his low-spoken words with a suddenness that made her start. “What are you doing here? Don’t you see that mamma is suffering—absolutely suffering—for a fan? Go give it to her; and then,” in a low tone, “go up to my room and stay there!”

Lillian bowed. Well, of course Miss Raleigh was right. It was not Lillian’s place to stand among Miss Raleigh’s select and fashionable guests; she—a hired companion—waiting-maid—upper servant!

With a grateful “I thank you for your kindness, Mr. Lyndon,” Lillian glided away, leaving Rosamond, nothing loath, to take the place at Jack Lyndon’s side which she had just vacated.

“How annoying and unpleasant it is, Mr. Lyndon, to be troubled with servants who are above their stations, and who, in common parlance, ‘have seen better days.’ Now that girl really knows nothing of the duties and proprieties of her position here; and I want to be kind and gentle with her, yet I must be firm, and I fear that I have a disagreeable task before me. For it is so difficult to train such people without wounding their sensibilities; and when they once imagine themselves slighted or insulted, there is no hope of doing anything with them. And so,” with a pretty deprecatory gesture of the small gloved hands, “you see how it is.”

It was a slightly ambiguous speech, but it had its own effect. Jack’s conscience gave a queer little twinge of remorse.

He had been too hard in thought upon Miss Raleigh—too hard and stern, after all. She meant well—she did the best that she knew. And hers had been but a superficial and artificial education, a life without aim or object, an empty fashionable career, with only the false lights of pleasure and worldly amusements to lure her on.

How vapid and unsatisfying it must be. And he little dreamed—this grave young knight of the quill—that that same life of fashionable dissipation was Rosamond Raleigh’s highest ideal, filled every vacant corner of her heart, was, in fact, the only existence for which she cared, or which it was possible for her to know and be content. His grave eyes met her appealing glance kindly, and his voice took on a gentler tone as he returned:

A low cry resounded through the room and startled the two. Lenore had opened her eyes and returned to consciousness. She was struggling and panting and gasping for breath, her eyes—beautiful dreamy dark eyes—were dilated with horror; the small, cold hands were tearing[Pg 32] wildly at the frosty white lace upon her breast, and she looked like one distraught.

“Take me away! take me away!” she panted, feebly. “Oh, Van!” burying her pale face upon the black coat-sleeve of the pompous senator—“has—has he gone?”

Van Alstyne bent his head and gazed into his wife’s frightened face with eyes full of undisguised wonder. He was coarse and red faced and hard featured, with small, ferret-like eyes and iron-gray hair and beard.

“Lenore!” in a deprecatory tone, “whom do you mean, dear? Don’t you remember you were frightened by an old woman—witch—beldame—whom your cousin Rosamond saw fit to introduce among her select guests. By Jove!” with a fierce assumption of dignity, “it has come to a pretty pass indeed if a man is compelled to meet such trash at the very first houses! Lenore, try to be calm. There is nothing to fear, you have had a fright—a foolish fright—followed by a fainting fit, which latter I must say does not surprise me. My dear, I never knew you to faint before but once,” he added, briefly, with a significant glance which brought the red blood to her pale cheek.

Ah, yes! she remembered that other swoon. Heaven knows she had reason to remember it. It had occurred at her own marriage. In memory she saw it all—went through the same scene once more. The brilliantly lighted church; the gay, glittering crowd; the bridal procession, with the bride, whiter than death itself, leaning upon the arm of the pompous bridegroom, while they made their triumphal exit from the sacred edifice, out to the long line of waiting carriages drawn up beside the curb; the crowd in the street without surging, swaying to and fro; and above all others one face—a face which appeared amid the throng, gazing upon her with great dark eyes full of mute reproach. One swift instant their eyes had met, and like one suddenly stricken dead, the bride fell to the pavement.

It all came back to her now in a swift, hurried flash; then there was a sudden transformation scene. Lenore Van Alstyne started to her feet. She looked like a galvanized corpse, but the pale lips shut themselves down closely, and the white hands clinched and unclinched each other fiercely; and then a light silvery laugh rang out, and she turned to the watching, lynx-eyed man at her side.

“Come, let us dance! Rosamond said that we should have the lancers, and now is as good a time as any. Waltz, did you say, Captain Burnham?” as a tall, soldierly man bowed before her with a few low, eager words. “Ah, pray excuse me from that. I am not very strong. My foolish nerves have played me a sad trick, and I do not feel equal to a waltz. But the lancers—I shall be delighted. Rosamond, ma cousine, where is the music?” turning as she spoke with a light laugh to meet Rosamond’s astonished gaze, as she still conversed with Jack Lyndon.

“Surely you are not able to dance, Lenore,” she was beginning; but Mrs. Van Alstyne cut the remonstrance short.

And then Jack Lyndon found himself offering his arm to Miss Raleigh, and the business of dancing the lancers was begun.

But everything comes to an end sooner or later, and at last the reception was over; and Jack Lyndon, feeling very much as though he were awaking from an unusually fanciful dream, found himself on his way home, holding in his memory the half-whispered words of the heiress, Miss Raleigh:

“Don’t forget the opera to-morrow night! Call early, Jack—I beg your pardon—Mr. Lyndon,” a swift crimson tingeing her cheek.

After which he could not fail to catch a glimmer of the light of truth, and open his sleepy eyes to the suspicion[Pg 34] that the cold, statuesque Miss Raleigh was really becoming interested in the poor journalist.

“Poor little Lillian!” was all that he said—and that certainly seems a strange remark to make, when we consider that Miss Raleigh was the object of his thoughts.

And at that very hour, in the Van Alstynes’ spacious mansion, Lenore was pacing up and down her own room, its door securely locked against intruders, her face pale as marble, all assumed gayety vanished, one hand clutching at her heart, as she murmured, brokenly:

“It must be—it must be true. It was his voice—I would know it anywhere. Oh! may Heaven have pity and let me die, for I am the most miserable woman in the whole world!”

Lillian glanced up with a start at sound of that voice—or was it the hiss of a serpent?—and her pale face flushed a little as she arose to her feet. It was in Miss Raleigh’s sleeping-room, and she had been dreaming over the fire, awaiting the coming of her tyrannical task-mistress, and while she sat there these thoughts had been flitting through her brain:

“I wonder what was the matter to-night? Just as I was about to open the library door, when I went to carry Mrs. Raleigh’s fan, it opened suddenly from within, and a strange, weird-looking old woman rushed out, flew down the hall, and was out of the front door and gone before I could recover my breath. And there were the library lights all extinguished; and Mrs. Van Alstyne—that pale, proud-looking lady—had fainted dead away. And Miss Raleigh looked so overcome with terror! It must have been some very unusual excitement; but, of course, I[Pg 35] dared ask no questions, and it is no concern of mine. I am afraid of Mr. Richard Raleigh,” she went on, after a brief pause, her busy brain full of the late strange occurrences, “and but for Mr. Lyndon he might have said more. I must avoid Mr. Raleigh as much as possible. How good Mr. Lyndon is—so noble, so kind! I wonder—I wonder if he cares for Miss Rosamond? And how she smiles upon him! I should think that—”

And then that shrill, high-pitched voice had broken in upon the girl’s reverie, calling her name in a tone of authority.

“Get up, you lazy creature! Why have you not a chair before the fire all ready for me when I come in, as—as my other maid used to do? Here, I enter my room tired to death, and the hour late, and I find my maid—my—maid,” with inexpressible scorn in the cutting voice, “seated before my fire without a thought of my comfort. How dare you?”

Lillian stood still, quite overcome by this tirade; then she made haste to wheel the chair which she had just vacated closer to the fire.

“I—I beg you pardon, Miss Raleigh,” she said, quietly. “I did not mean to do anything wrong. I am tired, and as you told me to wait for you, I naturally sat before the fire this cold night.”

“Get me another!” she commanded, insolently. “I do not care for a seat which my servant occupies.”

The red blood crimsoned Lillian’s pale face, and her beautiful brown eyes flashed. But she compressed her lips firmly, and brought another chair, into which Miss Raleigh sunk with an air of intense fatigue.

“I am tired to death!” she exclaimed, savagely. “Come and take my hair down, and brush it thoroughly.[Pg 36] I am accustomed to having it brushed every night for at least an hour before I retire!”

Poor Lillian glanced at the clock ticking away upon the velvet-draped bracket near. The hands pointed to the hour of two.

Rosamond laughed disdainfully at sight of the consternation upon Lillian’s face.

“Oh! you will soon find that you must keep all sorts of hours if you remain in my employ, Miss Lillian Leigh!” she sneered, coarsely. “I always make my waiting-maid earn her salary, you may well believe! Whoever fills that position must earn the money, though the effort should cost her her life. Ah! what is that?”

The ivory-backed brush trembled in Lillian’s grasp as she stood with uplifted hand, the rosy fire-light flashing up painted a vivid red spot upon Rosamond Raleigh’s pale cheek; then the flame sunk down into feathery ashes once more. A sound had fallen upon their ears plainly, distinctly; it was a low, hollow groan! Trembling like a leaf Miss Raleigh started to her feet. Her long hair fell over her shoulders in a streaming golden shower; she looked unearthly in the loose white wrapper which she had already donned. Pale, and shaking like an aspen, she went over to the door of the little octagonal room, and threw it open wide.

“Lillian, come here!” she commanded; and slowly and wonderingly Lillian obeyed. “Go into that room,” continued Miss Raleigh, authoritatively, “and see if there is anybody hidden there! Look behind the curtains and furniture; leave nothing unsearched.”

Wondering greatly, Lillian lighted a small bronze lamp which stood upon a bracket, and slowly and hesitatingly she entered the little room. She returned, after a brief absence, very pale and grave.

“There is no one there, Miss Raleigh,” she announced, placing the lamp upon a marble table near.

Rosamond snatched up the lamp and forced her trembling slave to follow her back into the little room once more. Everything was just as it had been left that day when they had carried something away from it—something stark and stiff and white, something which would never come back again—would never come back. Would it not?

Rosamond Raleigh’s memory was a good one; she shivered involuntarily. With mad haste she explored every corner of the room; peering behind furniture, lifting silken curtains, leaving no chance for any human being to remain concealed. Then she left the room and locked the door behind her; after which she extinguished the lamp and threw herself into the easy-chair once more.

“Brush my hair!” she commanded, ungraciously. “I am half dead with fatigue.”

And there poor Lillian stood for a whole mortal hour, brushing out the beauty’s shining, silken hair until her brain reeled, and her cold hand shook so that she could scarcely move the brush, and the white lids began to droop over the weary eyes, while the cat-like orbs of her cruel task-mistress seemed never to court slumber. At last, in sheer exhaustion, Lillian came to a halt.

“Miss Raleigh, excuse me to-night, will you not?” she pleaded. “I am not accustomed to such late hours, and I have been through a great deal to-day, and am so tired that I can scarcely stand.”

Rosamond snatched the brush from her hand and threw it across the room in a childish outburst of temper.

“Go!” she cried, stamping her foot savagely. “I see plainly the sort of a maid you will make!”

“Miss Raleigh, will you please bear in mind that I did not apply for the position of waiting-maid? Your advertisement said a companion; and I, of course, believed that[Pg 38] my duties would be simply those of a companion—to read to you, sew, sing and play if you desired it, write, go errands—all such light duties. But to dress and undress you, to keep the fire burning in your room indefinitely, and to stand and brush your hair all night long, I must confess my inability to cope with all that. I am young and not very strong. I have never worked before in my life—only a little type-writing, and my health would soon break down under such endless work as this, which keeps a girl employed all day and all night, too. Good-morning, Miss Raleigh; the clock is about to strike three. I beg leave to retire.”

“Very well,” her steely eyes fixed upon the girl with cold disdain, “we will speak further upon this subject in the morning. After to-night I intend to have you sleep in the little round room next to mine. I am lonely here in the wing of the house away from every one else.”

Lillian grew deathly pale. She had heard the story of the round room hinted at by the servants, even during her brief sojourn at the Raleigh mansion, and she was afraid—afraid. For she was timid, and the whispers in the servants’ quarters hinted at a dark deed.

But, glad to escape from her task-mistress, she hastened away to the little room which had been assigned her, at the furthest end of the hall, and hastily retiring, the friendless orphan girl was soon fast asleep. And in dreams she was no longer poor, and alone, and forsaken; but happy as mortals are never happy upon this earth—only in dreams.

The next day passed quite uneventfully. Rosamond had compromised with Lillian, retaining her as general factotum, on condition that she should not be compulsively detained from her rest after midnight. So night came down once more, and Rosamond, in her sumptuous apartment, was preparing to attend the opera.

“I will wear blue silk and pearls!” she announced. “Mamma and I are going to hear ‘Il Trovatore’ with Mr. Lyndon. He is quite the fashion now, so I venture to go with him, although of course he is not in our set, and is only a poor journalist. And—oh, yes, Lillian, before it gets too late, I want you to run down to the greenhouse—the one away at the further end of the grounds—and tell Barnes, the gardener, to send me a bouquet of pink rosebuds. Make haste now, for I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

To hear was to obey. Lillian made haste to do so. Five minutes later she was standing at the entrance to the long greenhouse, dimly lighted by a hanging lamp, and lying like a great dark shadow athwart the dusk of early night. She peered eagerly through the gloom.

An arm stole around her waist, and a slim, dark hand crowned by a flashing diamond closed down upon Lillian’s hand, while Richard Raleigh’s silky voice cried:

With a wild cry Lillian wrenched herself away from his hold, her face pale, her eyes blazing.

And at that very instant her quick eyes caught sight of a tall form hastening through the grounds, and she called, wildly:

With a muttered oath, Raleigh had grasped her arm[Pg 40] once more, and held her fast, trying to calm her wild outcries.

The tall figure turned swiftly and hurried footsteps reached her side. Not Barnes the gardener, but tall, handsome Jack Lyndon, who had heard her frenzied cry, and had come to the rescue.

“Mr. Raleigh, unhand that lady!” a low voice panted, furiously, “or, by Heaven! you cowardly dog, I will kill you!”

For a moment, awful silence, while the two men stood glaring at each other with eyes full of hatred and defiance. Richard Raleigh was the first to speak.

“Ha! Our doughty friend of the ‘Thunderer!’ Sir Knight of the Quill and Paste-pot, whose coat of arms is two pens crossed upon a background of inky paper! Mr. Jack Lyndon,” growing more and more furious, “you deserve to be punished for this audacity, and taught to know your place.”

“I have a mind to horsewhip you as I would a vicious dog!” stormed Jack, his tall form trembling with excitement, his strong hands clinching and unclinching themselves, as though longing to strike his opponent down at his feet.

“You have no inferiors outside the brute creation!” returned Jack, with stinging contempt. “By Jove!” turning with sudden energy, as Raleigh, impelled by devilish malice, caught Lillian by the arm once more in a rude grasp.

There was silence for half a second, broken by the sound of a heavy blow, followed by a sickening thud as Raleigh’s[Pg 41] tall form swayed heavily forward and fell into a clump of shrubbery which grew near.

“Oh, Mr. Lyndon!” Lillian’s voice pealed forth in wild terror, “you have killed him!”

Jack stooped over the prostrate form, his face pale and still, in his handsome dark eyes a look that was bad to see.

“No danger of that,” he muttered, angrily, for Jack Lyndon’s temper, usually well under control, was now at white heat. “Such creatures are not so easily exterminated. Miss Leigh, I beg your pardon, but it was hardly prudent for you to venture out here alone so late.”

“Miss Raleigh sent me for a bouquet of pink rosebuds,” she returned. “I never dreamed of meeting Mr. Raleigh!” she added, innocently.

“I should think not, indeed!” he panted. “Do not trouble about the flowers, Miss Leigh. I have already sent a bouquet to Miss Raleigh, which I imagine will prove satisfactory. Come, let me accompany you back to the house. That fellow yonder is recovering consciousness, and I do not care to have any further argument with him.”

Richard Raleigh, with slow and painful effort, was rising to his feet. Jack drew Lillian’s trembling hand through his arm and led her away. It was some distance back to the house; and at length, in a secluded nook, where trailing rose-vines, half denuded of their leaves, still clung to a tiny summer-house, Jack Lyndon paused.

“Lillian!”—in a tone of alarm—“Miss Leigh, you are ill, fainting!” he exclaimed. “Oh, my darling—my darling, let me stand between you and the storms of life! You are too dainty and delicate to meet the adverse winds of fate, and battle alone and single-handed. Let me—”

A shrill, high-pitched voice broke in upon his eager words with cold disapproval.

And Miss Raleigh, with a white burnoose wrapped about her, and the long silken train of her azure robe flung carefully across her arm, appeared suddenly before them, like Banquo’s ghost—and quite as unexpected.

“Can it be possible”—in a grave, sweet, reproachful tone, which no one knew better than Rosamond Raleigh when and how to assume—“Lillian, whom I had believed immaculate, flirting out under the trees this wintery night, with—Why!”—with an affected start and a little shriek—“if it isn’t Mr. Lyndon! Why, Mr. Lyndon, how you startled me! I did not expect to find you here with my maid!”

There was a world of cruel significance in the sharp, cutting voice, which made Jack Lyndon gnash his teeth.

“By Jove!” he muttered under his breath, “a man has to endure unlimited insults from a woman, simply because she is a woman, when ten to one if they do not deserve—”

Whatever it was which, according to Mr. Jack Lyndon, the weaker sex deserved, was destined never to be known. He had dropped Lillian’s hand, feeling the unpleasantness of her position, and longing to spare her all that he could. Pale and grave, he turned to Rosamond.

“Miss Raleigh!”—in a low voice, his eyes upon the pearl-powdered and daintily rouged face plainly revealed by the moonlight—“I entered your grounds through the side gate—the shorter way which you pointed out to me. I was on my way to the house, and you, when I heard a scream—a woman’s voice in wild alarm, calling for help! I hastened to the spot and found Miss Leigh at the very door of the greenhouse, in the grasp of a ruffian!”

“Mr. Lyndon! Upon our grounds? Grafton Raleigh’s private grounds?” in an awe-stricken tone.

Jack smiled. “Even upon Mr. Grafton Raleigh’s sacred premises, my dear Miss Rosamond, the glaring insult was perpetrated. And the perpetrator was your own brother, Richard Raleigh!”

“It is true, Miss Raleigh, I assure you. And—I must confess—I was so angry that I—knocked him down!”

“You did?” her eyes flashing wickedly. “Well, I am sure that he deserved it! I have sometimes felt an insane desire myself to knock Rick down! He is so exasperating! But now you have done it for me!”

“Oh, no! I did it to rescue Miss Leigh—as her knight-errant! And although I am sorry to be upon such terms with your brother, Miss Raleigh, I could not stand quietly by and see a lady insulted—above all things, the lady who—”

“Lillian, go into the house!” cut in Miss Raleigh, sharply. “You need not be afraid to go alone! Have my opera-cloak, fan and gloves all ready by the time I reach the house. Mr. Lyndon, I have to thank you for that exquisite bouquet!” she added, laying a white hand upon his arm and lifting a radiant face to his. Impelled by an irresistible impulse, Jack bent his head and kissed the dainty fingers which rested upon his sleeve. A flush of triumph shot through Rosamond’s cheek, her heart leaped and bounded like a mad thing.

“He cares for me! I verily believe it!” she whispered to herself. “And I don’t see how he could help it! He ought to be proud and elated at winning the favor of Grafton Raleigh’s only daughter! As for that sly little minx, Lillian Leigh, I will get rid of her before many days!”

And then, leaning upon Jack Lyndon’s arm, she went slowly back to the house where mamma, in lavender brocade and diamonds, awaited her coming. If Jack had hoped to catch a glimpse of Lillian, or to breathe a few whispered words into her ear, he was grievously disappointed, for he saw her no more.

Upstairs in Miss Raleigh’s chamber Lillian heard the sound of the carriage-wheels as the carriage drove away to the opera.

“Why am I so different from other girls?” she asked herself; “I am young, well educated, not bad looking”—her eyes wandered over to the great mirror which had so often reflected Miss Raleigh’s features—“and I—I do care for Mr. Lyndon. He is so noble and good; how could any one help caring for him? And she,” with a sharp sting of jealous pain stirring blindly in her heart, “she likes him, I can see that, though he is poor and she the daughter of a millionaire!”

And then a pause of silence, after which Lillian started to her feet with a little cry of remorse.

“I am not pleasing papa,” she cried, her eyes full of tears; “he would like me to keep up my studies, and I have been neglectful. I will get my books and look over my French and German. When Miss Raleigh comes I will not be so tired.”

When Miss Raleigh came the midnight chimes had long been rung. She entered the room, her face full of displeasure. Jack Lyndon had been all that a gentleman—an admirer—should be that evening; but when he bade her good-night he had asked permission to speak a few words in private with Miss Leigh the next morning. “Something of importance to communicate,” he had said. Rosamond Raleigh marched straight to her own room and opened its door. Trembling with wrath, she stalked into her sleeping apartment.

“Lillian Leigh”—her voice was loud and shrill—“your conduct is disgraceful in the extreme! You have been the occasion of an insult—a gross insult to my brother—my brother; do you understand me? You, a common servant-girl! I will have you punished as you deserve! I will disgrace you—ruin you forever—so help me Heaven, I will!”

“I have done no wrong—no intentional harm! If your[Pg 45] brother is not a gentleman, and forgets the respect due a lady, I am not responsible. And Mr. Lyndon said—”

“Don’t mention his name!” stormed Rosamond. “He has been making light of you to me to-night—laughed at you, made sport of you. He says that you threw yourself in his way!”

“Miss Raleigh, I do not believe you! I do not believe a word that you say. Mr. Lyndon is a gentleman.”

“You—don’t—believe me?” panted Rosamond—“don’t—believe me? Take that—and that, you beggar!” bringing her hand down with all its sharp, glittering rings across Lillian’s pale cheeks in a shower of stinging blows. “You shall go into the round room and sleep upon the sofa!” raved Miss Raleigh. “To-morrow your bed shall be brought there!”

She unlocked the door of communication between the two rooms, and dragging Lillian after her by the arm, too overcome by the insults which had been heaped upon her to utter a word, she entered the round room. Moonlight streamed in at the window—or was it moonlight? No; the shade was closely drawn; but a soft, clear radiance was diffused through the room. And there, in its old place at the window, sat a slight, drooping figure—a thin, attenuated form—while the shadowy fingers were painting—painting away at an amber satin panel—a task that was never done, that would never be done! And the strange, soft light which shone throughout the apartment disclosed the features of the dead Noisette.

Full of blank, wordless horror, Rosamond stood staring into the startled face of her companion, too terrified to move from the spot and shut out the awful scene.

And still the girlish figure at the window of the round[Pg 46] room bent over its never-ending task; still the shadowy fingers wielded the brush, and the scarlet poppies and graceful vine tendrils grew beneath that ghostly touch upon the amber satin—grew and blossomed into artistic beauty, but never done—never to be done.

Shivering all over, like one with an ague, Rosamond Raleigh clutched the arm of her waiting-maid.

“Lillian!”—her teeth chattering like castanets as she attempted to speak—“it is Noisette, the girl who—who—died in this room two weeks ago! It is she; there is no mistake about it; no freak of the imagination, no fancy. It is Noisette Duval, the little French girl whom I took from the orphan asylum and treated like a sister. We gave her a home—a good home, only receiving in return her services as my maid, and stipulating that she should spend her spare time in painting little things—fans, sashes, dress panels, and such trifles. I was always kind to her, as kind as any one could be!”

Miss Raleigh came to a halt. It seemed to her as those words—those false, wicked words—passed her lips that a hand was laid upon her shoulder—a firm, detaining hand—which gripped the soft white flesh with a merciless clutch. Trembling violently, she burst into a flood of hysterical tears, sinking down upon the velvet-covered floor, with her white face buried in her cold, shaking hands.

“Oh, Lillian, I am haunted! I am haunted!” she sobbed, brokenly, at last. “I know it, I feel it! Whenever I enter this room I see her—see her sitting there at the window painting, painting away, with that dejected look upon her face so thin and wan and so unearthly white. Oh, Lillian! what shall I do?”

A strange courage, born of desperation, seemed to take possession of Lillian Leigh’s heart. She glanced fearfully in at the open door of the round room, then with a swift movement she crossed its threshold and entered the room.

Straight up to the window, looking neither to the right[Pg 47] nor to the left, went Lillian. Her heart beat wildly, throbbing like a sledge-hammer in her frightened ears; but she went calmly over to where the apparition still was visible, and stooping, peered into the still, calm, unearthly face. Instantly there was a low sob, a faint moaning sound which fell upon the silence with a strange, despairing echo, and then the vision faded away—the apparition was gone! And nothing was left to tell the two terrified witnesses that there had been a ghostly visitant within the room—nothing, save the memory of that which they could not forget, which they would never forget as long as they both should live.

With a shudder Lillian went back to the other room, to the graceful figure in shimmering silk crouching upon the carpet, wringing white jeweled hands in wildest terror, while shudders like convulsions passed over her frame.

“Come, Miss Raleigh,” urged Lillian, venturing to lay her hand upon the bowed head, “let me help you to undress and put on a wrapper, and then I will brush out your hair, and try to help you to forget this thing. Oh, Miss Rosamond, there is nothing there! You can see for yourself. It is all dark now in the round room. There is nothing to fear—it is gone. Come, sit in this easy-chair, and try to be calm and brave.”

“I am afraid!” she whimpered, feebly, sobbing like a child who awakes in his sleep frightened and alarmed, full of shadowy fears of he knows not what.

“Is it really gone?” she faltered. “Then I will—Oh, heavens! what is that?” with a shrill shriek which resounded throughout the silent house, as a sharp rap was heard upon the door of the room.

That was the last drop in the bucket; Rosamond’s self-control—such as it was—gave way, and shriek after shriek[Pg 48] rent the silence, while poor Lillian stood like a statue, too terrified to move, not knowing what to do; afraid to open the door lest Rosamond’s shrieks should redouble in violence, yet to stand there and do nothing—good heavens! it was maddening!

“Rosamond,” called a voice through the key-hole, “for mercy’s sake, what is the matter? Open the door at once, I say! Are you being murdered in there?”

The shrieks were cut short in a twinkling. Rosamond started up, pale and breathless.

“It is mamma,” she panted, in a tone of relief, as she threw herself into an easy-chair, with clasped hands and a face so full of terror that it was a sight to behold.

Lillian flew to the door and unlocked it. Upon the threshold, in awful dignity and a flannel dressing-gown, stood Mrs. Raleigh.

“What—what is the matter?” she gasped, feebly. “I heard such a disturbance in here that I began to think the house was on fire, or some other awful calamity had occurred, so I left my bed, threw on a wrapper, and came here at once. Rosamond,” turning to her weeping daughter with a face full of alarm, “what has happened?”

And then, amid sobs and tears, and wild terror unsuppressed, Rosamond sobbed forth the story of the ghostly apparition. Her mother listened with undisguised contempt.

“A ghost? Bah! Rosamond Raleigh, I gave you credit for a little common sense! If ever I hear anything of this nonsense again, I shall tell your father. He will send you off somewhere into the country”—Rosamond shivered with disgust—“or to some place of retirement, and place you under a physician’s care, and we will see if your nerves will give way at every little strain. Rosamond Raleigh, you are a fool!”

She was a real Job’s comforter, Lillian thought; but perhaps it was the proper course to take. At all events,[Pg 49] she knew the nature with which she had to deal. Rosamond dried her tears and leaned her head against the soft cushions of the chair, listening, with half-closed eyes, to her mother’s lecture.

Mrs. Raleigh went over to the door of the round room and threw it open. One glance and she turned away with a disdainful sniff. Darkness there, and nothing more.

“It was not, indeed, Mrs. Raleigh. I beg your pardon for contradicting you, but I saw it myself.”

Lillian could not refrain from this outburst of explanation. Mrs. Raleigh turned coldly upon her and transfixed her with a Gorgon stare.

“Did I address you, girl?” she demanded, severely. “We never permit servants to speak their minds in that way. You will have to learn your place if you remain in Miss Raleigh’s employ.”

“I do not know that I shall remain in Miss Raleigh’s employ,” returned Lillian, quietly. “I was engaged as companion, but find myself reduced to the position of waiting-maid. The position is not an agreeable one, and I was not educated and trained for a servant, Mrs. Raleigh.”

“Mamma,” sobbed Rosamond, beginning to turn on the water-works once more, “that girl will go away and will tell everybody that this house is haunted; and she will make Mr. Lyndon think me a horrible creature, and—”

“Mr. Lyndon, indeed!” interposed Mrs. Raleigh, with a look of disgust too deep for words to express. “And pray, who is Mr. Lyndon, that he should be of such importance, and his opinion so highly prized by Grafton Raleigh’s only daughter? Rosamond, I think you forget yourself! Jack Lyndon is only a poor newspaper attaché—a mere nobody, with neither money nor position—only a handsome face and a sharp tongue to call his own. He is the last man in the world to whom your father would be[Pg 50] willing to give his daughter. You must be mad to think seriously of Jack Lyndon. Put it out of your mind at once and forever. He is a villain to try to win your heart.”

Rosamond started to her feet, pale and wrathful, overcome by anger which for a time was too deep for expression. Twice she opened her lips to speak before the words which she was striving to utter were suddenly hissed forth, sharp and shrill:

“Hush! Don’t say another word, mamma, for I will not listen. A villain! Jack Lyndon is the best and noblest man in the round world. And poor, without position though he may be, he is the only man for whom I have ever really cared, and—mamma, you may as well know it now as later—I intend to marry him.”

A low cry fell from Lillian’s lips. She could not forget his words to her so short a time before; his tender tone and the look upon his handsome face when he begged her to let him stand between her and the storms of life. And yet he must have said something which made Rosamond Raleigh believe that he cared for her, or she would never have spoken in that way. Mrs. Raleigh flashed about at the sound of that low cry, and her hard, cold eyes swept Lillian from head to foot.

“You must be mad,” she hissed, “if you imagine for a moment that Mr. Lyndon has ever thought seriously of you. He is kind to everybody, and treats all women alike. With the woman he loves, of course, it is different,” she went on, icily. “If he has ever spoken kindly to you, or noticed you in any way, it is because of the chivalry and deference of his nature, but anything further is absurd.”

And then memory reminded her with a cruel little stab of Jack Lyndon’s words to her that very evening. He had[Pg 51] begged for a private interview with Lillian Leigh on the following morning, and the look in his eyes when he made the request of Rosamond revealed the secret of his heart. He loved a woman dearly, but it was not Rosamond Raleigh! And as Miss Raleigh remembered, her thin lips shut themselves closely together, and the small, cold hands clinched each other fiercely, while low under her breath she muttered, with angry emphasis:

“He shall not see her! He must not! I will manage it some way, and I shall get rid of her as soon as possible.”

“Go to bed!” she commanded, sternly. “Last night when I wished you to remain with me you made a great fuss; to-night you seem inclined to remain up till morning. Go to your own room. I shall not need you to-night, and I wish to talk with mamma.”

Thus summarily dismissed, Lillian said good-night briefly and took her departure, sore-hearted and sad in mind and body. What did it all mean? She had begun to trust Jack Lyndon implicitly, and to find out his treachery was a fearful blow. She closed the door of her room behind her and stirred the fire into a cheery blaze. Her eyes fell upon a card lying upon the table; she picked it up and read these words penciled upon it:

“A clew!” she panted, at last. “Can it be possible? What would I not do to gain possession of it? Oh, to find out the name of the dastardly wretch who took my father’s life I would be willing to lie down and die.”

Meanwhile, in Rosamond’s room, Mrs. Raleigh was talking away in a low, eager tone.

“You are right, Rosamond,” she said, excitedly, “Lenore Van Alstyne has a secret—a bad secret, I am certain. And he does not know it—does not dream it—that pompous man who has bought her with his gold! She hates him, but he does not know why. Here, I found this in the dressing-room after the guests left last night. I saw it drop from Lenore’s pocket. Read it, Rosamond, and tell me what you think.”

She thrust a scrap of paper into Rosamond’s hand. Her face flushed with unholy triumph.

The wintery sunlight stole in at the windows of the breakfast-room at Senator Van Alstyne’s sumptuous mansion. It paved a shining pathway over the pretty crimson carpet, over the round damask-covered table, glittering with silver and crystal and delicate Sèvres china. A bird sung in a gilded cage amid the flowering plants in the bay-window, and the sunlight shone over all with a soft mellow glow which even the sparkling wood fire upon the marble hearth could not outshine. That same sunshine danced in irreverent glee upon the top of Senator Van Alstyne’s iron-gray head, as he sat with the morning paper before him, absorbed in the news. But all the same there was a frown upon his brow, and an unpleasant expression hovered about his coarse red face which betrayed inward annoyance or trouble. And so you will perceive that even riches can not keep trouble away, and that a man may be a senator and a millionaire, but still know what it is to be annoyed.

He glanced up from his paper at last, and turned toward the ormolu clock ticking musically upon the marble mantel, and the scowl upon his face grew deeper.

“In the name of Heaven, why does not she come[Pg 53] down?” he exploded at length; “half past ten o’clock! Why on earth a woman wishes to remain all day in her room is more than I can tell. I will endure her airs and graces no longer. When I married Lenore Vane I intended—”

The click of high heels, the sweeping of silken skirts, and the door of the breakfast-room opened and Mrs. Van Alstyne appeared.

She wore a pink surah morning-dress garnitured with yellow lace, and her beautiful face looked like chiseled marble, as with a cold, proud, weary manner she swept to her place at the breakfast-table.

“Good-morning, Van!” nodding slightly toward him. “Really, I am unconscionably late! Why did you wait all this time for me?”

It was as though the one word had been fired off like a cannon-ball, so sudden and sharp was the expletive.

“Simply because I have always told you, madame, that I will never take my meals alone as long as my wife is able to come to them. If you were ill it would be different; but as it is I demand obedience, and I shall exact it hereafter!”

She shut her white teeth hard together, and the white hand that poured the steaming coffee from the silver urn shook a little. But she compressed her lips over the sharp retort which trembled for utterance, and went on with her occupation. At last:

“Here is a letter that came for you this morning,” he snarled, as he tossed a square white envelope across the table, where it fell beside her plate. “By the way,” he demanded, harshly, his small eyes upon her face with a look of menace, “who is ‘C. F.’?”

“‘C. F.’?” And the blood forsook her white face; the cup of delicate egg-shell china which she was about lifting to her lips fell from her grasp and was shivered into[Pg 54] fragments. “You startled me, Van,” she observed, apologetically.

“But that is not answering my question,” he persisted. “There’s no use in your trying to keep all your past to yourself, Lenore Van Alstyne. When I married you, you acknowledged that there was something in your past of which I was in ignorance—deuced disagreeable to have a wife with secrets in her life—and I agreed to ask no questions; and it was also settled upon the day”—emphatically, with his ugly eyes staring full into her own—“that I honored you with my name, my hand and fortune, that all your past was to be dropped forever with the name of Vane. You remember that that was the agreement, Lenore?”

“Heaven knows I have small chance to forget,” she returned, wearily, “since you remind me of it every day of my life—every weary, endless day of my wretched life!” she moaned, stopping short in a spasm of terror at sight of the thunder-cloud upon his face.

“See here, madame”—he brought his big, fat hand down upon the table with a force which made the china jump—“if all these heroics are intended to act as a means of diverting me from getting at the truth, let me tell you, my lady, that you are failing in your attempt. Once more I ask—nay, demand of you, Mrs. Van Alstyne—who is ‘C. F.’?”

“Well, are you never going to open that letter? You will see by glancing at it that it is sealed with the monogram ‘C. F.’”

For the first time she glanced at the letter. It was lying face uppermost, addressed in a bold, legible hand to Mrs. Lenore Van Alstyne. Surely that handwriting was familiar to her? A strange pang shot through her heart,[Pg 55] an awful pallor overspread her cheek; she crushed her teeth into her under lip with savage ferocity as she took the letter from the table and turned it over. It was sealed with a drop of wax, red and glistening, which bore the monogram “C. F.” She knew then why her husband had awaited her appearance at the breakfast-table. He was afraid to open the letter and seal it again, as he had been guilty of doing before now, for the wax could not be broken and resealed without betraying the truth. Her lip curled with disdain as she slowly opened the letter. One glance—one swift, eager glance—and she started to her feet with a low moan. One hand was pressed against her heart as though to still its awful tumult, the other clutched the letter in a most despairing grasp.

“Heaven help me!” she whispered low under her breath. And all the time those basilisk eyes were upon her with an eager, devouring gaze, and Senator Van Alstyne watched his wife as a cat watches the mouse upon which it is about to spring. At last:

“Well, Mrs. Van Alstyne, you seem inclined to be tragical this morning!” he sneered. “Here, give me the letter.”

She drew back with a gesture of horror in her beautiful dark eyes—a look that was bad to see.

“No! no! no!” she panted, hoarsely; “you must not! I—I mean that it is nothing. My heart hurts me this morning, and I was a little startled! I shall be all right soon, and—”

“Give me that letter, I say!” he panted, glaring down into her terrified face with his cruel eyes. “How dare you have secrets from me—I, your husband, your lord and master? Give me that letter at once, I command you, or by the Heaven above us I will force it from you!”

Her head was crested like the head of some beautiful wild creature brought to bay by the cruel hounds, and her starry eyes flashed fire.

“Unhand me, sir!” she commanded, in a low, ominous voice. “Let go my arm, Van Van Alstyne, or I will ring for the servants, and throw myself upon their protection!”

“No! I will not! You have no more right to demand my letters of me in this brutal way than I have to see yours—if I care to—from the pretty ballet-dancer who wrote to you yesterday!”

“Nonsense! A man and a woman are different in the eyes of society. It would be a pretty thing if a woman were allowed the same privileges that a man is permitted.”

“We agree to disagree upon that subject, Senator Van Alstyne,” she returned, quietly; “and now I will finish my breakfast.”

“You will do nothing of the sort! By Jove! madame, I will have you to know that I am master of this house, and that you—curse you!—are my wife! You belong to me, just the same as my horses and dogs, my plate and furniture! Give me that letter or I will take it.”

She flashed him one look—a look of mingled scorn and defiance—then, with a swift gesture, she wheeled about and tossed the letter into the fire. It flamed up red and glowing—flared and flickered and died down into a heap of feathery ashes. Whatever secret the letter contained, it was safe from Van Van Alstyne.

For just a moment he stood there, glaring down into her face, his own so distorted by rage that it had lost all semblance to a human countenance. His eyes scintillated, his burly form shook with wordless wrath. He wheeled about, and lifting his hand, brought it down—oh, shame to his manhood!—upon the white face of the woman before[Pg 57] him. No sound escaped her—no cry, no moan. Awful silence fell over the room; she neither spoke nor moved. The clock ticked away. One, two, three, four moments had come and gone; then, with a swift gesture of unutterable contempt, she lifted her scornful eyes to his face and—laughed. It was a bad thing to hear—that laugh. He grew pale, and shivered slightly as he heard it.

“Ah, what a glorious country this must be!” she sneered, in a low, cutting voice, “whose senate is honored by such creatures as you! Wife-beater, falsifier, base, perjured villain! How I loathe the name I bear!”

“Dishonor?”—she laughed once more. “Look to yourself, Van Van Alstyne.”

Once alone in her room, with the door locked securely, she threw herself face downward upon the floor with a storm of bitter sobs.

“He lives! he lives!” she murmured; “after all these years he lives and is true! How horribly I have suffered, how bitter my punishment, how fearfully I must atone! Yet it was an unintentional sin—it was my mistake; this is my punishment! God pity me and let me die, for my heart is broken.”

Those were the words written upon the scrap of paper which Mrs. Raleigh eagerly displayed to her daughter. Rosamond glanced the note over, and, crumpling it fiercely in her hand, she lifted her eyes to her mother’s face.

“Well, it is evident that she has a secret with a vengeance!” sneered Rosamond, “for there is something behind all this, I am sure. And it is no ordinary flirtation or escapade, for Lenore never flirts, and is scrupulously exact in her behavior. Mamma, this is a clew to the mystery which hangs around Lenore Van Alstyne; I am sure of it! Let me keep this paper. I will watch her closely and wait in patience, and if I am not greatly mistaken there will be developments before long. I never did fancy Lenore’s reticence in regard to the early part of her life. You know she lived in Europe with a relative of her father’s, who afterward died, leaving her alone and dependent upon us. But she never speaks of her girlhood’s days or her life in Europe. If I chance to refer to that time she changes the subject as hastily as possible; and I have seen her grow pale and shudder perceptibly when I happened to mention the subject. I should say that whatever her secret may be, it must have occurred some time early in her life, about her sixteenth or seventeenth year.”

“I believe you are right,” she said; “and now, Rosamond, you had better retire. These continued late hours are wearing upon you, and you are beginning to look jaded and—and—old! I will stay with you to-night; you are lonely and afraid.”

“Do,” in a tone of relief. And so at last Rosamond Raleigh’s head rested upon her pillow, but the wide-open eyes staring into the darkness found no sleep. They saw ever before them that pathetic little figure, the shadowy hands working ever on, so patient—so piteously patient—even like the fates weaving away at their never-to-be-completed web. The memory of the vision in the round room haunted Rosamond Raleigh sleeping or waking, and when morning came she arose pale and unrefreshed, feeling as though life were a veritable burden. As soon as breakfast was over she summoned Lillian.

“I want you to go down-town on an errand for me, Lillian,” she began. “Here is a note to Madame Dupont, my milliner. She has removed to a place quite out of the world, I should say. Take the note and bring me a reply. If she is not in wait for her return.”

Lillian was more than willing to go. It was a crisp, wintery morning, and a walk—even so long a walk—would do her good. So she hurriedly prepared herself and was soon in the street, her face turned in the direction indicated. She had not been gone a quarter of an hour when the door-bell rang and Jack Lyndon made his appearance. Although his call was intended for Lillian, prudence warned him that it would be more discreet to inquire for Miss Raleigh. He was shown into the pretty red-and-gold reception-room, and a little later he was holding Miss Raleigh’s hand in his, gazing down into a pair of frank, innocent blue eyes; just as frank and innocent as though she had not sent Lillian away purposely, and as though she were not playing a game—a desperate game—which must either be won or lost.

“Oh, Mr. Lyndon, I’m so glad to see you!” lifting the frank blue eyes for an instant to his, then letting the gold-brown lashes droop over them once more. “I was feeling really blue and lonely, and wishing that my good fairy would send some congenial spirit to me; and, lo! you have come.”

She looked fair and sweet as a picture, in a dainty house-dress of pale-blue surah shrouded in white lace, fastened at the throat with a quaint pearl brooch. But Jack was full of the object which had brought him thither, and felt possessed with the spirit of unrest. Rosamond talked on gayly, cheerily, trying to divert his mind from the subject with which it was engaged. At last:

“Miss Raleigh, I have called this morning hoping to obtain an interview with Miss Leigh. I have something of real importance to say to her, and trust that you[Pg 60] will permit me to infringe upon her time for a brief space.”

Rosamond’s face was like a marble mask. She arose and rang the bell. A servant appeared.

“If you please, Miss Rosamond, she’s gone out. She left word with me that if you wanted her, to say that she has gone up-town on an errand of her own, which you gave her permission to attend to to-day. You see, Miss Rosamond, you had not yet left your room, and Miss Leigh did not wish to disturb you.”

“Dear me! I wonder what Lillian’s particular business up-town can be? I told her that you were coming here this morning to see her in regard to a matter of importance. She looked confused, but she said nothing. Now, Jack—Mr. Lyndon, do not look so disappointed! Can not I act as a substitute for my maid?”

“I—I beg your pardon, Miss Raleigh,” he said, hastily. “I am aware that my conduct is very unusual. I beg that you will be lenient with me, and try to believe that I mean nothing wrong. And now I will bid you good-morning.”

“Why need you leave me so soon?” she pleaded. But Jack, disappointed and chagrined, was not to be beguiled.

He made his adieu and was soon out in the street, wandering he scarcely knew whither. He was off duty for a few hours, and the sense of freedom was sweet. He wandered[Pg 61] aimlessly down-town, away to the lower part of the city, where the city parks lay basking in the wintery sunlight, nearly deserted now by their usual occupants.

All at once Jack lifted his head, and his eyes fell upon a slight, graceful figure in deep black, seated upon a bench in Douglas Park, her fair, pure face uplifted, while the beautiful dark eyes watched the fleecy clouds overhead with a dreamy, abstracted air. Why had Rosamond Raleigh told him that Lillian had gone up-town, when in truth she had taken the opposite direction? He drew near the slight form.

Lillian started, and a swift wave of color flamed into her cheek as Jack came forward and seated himself at her side.

“From me!” he replied, venturing to take her hand in his own. “I called upon you just now, but Miss Raleigh informed me that you had gone up-town, or rather her servant said so. I was in despair, so I wandered on without aim; to-day is a holiday, and I seldom get one; but at last fate led me straight to your side. Lillian, fate is kind. My darling, say that you are glad to see me!”

“I am glad,” she murmured, softly. “Oh, so glad to see you! I was thinking of you just now!”

He lifted her hand to his lips. They were almost as much alone in the bleak, deserted park as Adam and Eve in Eden; and indeed it was Eden to them.

“Lillian, I love you!” The words burst from Jack’s lips in a torrent of passionate yearning. “Darling, let[Pg 62] me take you away from that house where you are so unhappy! Where you are ill-treated and insulted. Be my wife, Lillian, and I swear before Heaven to do all in my power to make you happy! And I will help you to find your father’s murderer! I know that you will never forget the vow that you took that awful night beside his body. Let me help you, darling, in your efforts to bring Gilbert Leigh’s murderer to justice! You do care for me, Lillian, darling?”

The shy, brown eyes drooped before his eager gaze, and sweet and low came the answer, “Yes.”

“Ah, good-evening, Mr. Lyndon. How glad I am that you have come! My truant maid did not return until—oh, a short time ago. And I have something to tell you, a love secret that I have surprised. What do you think? Lillian is in love!”

Jack started, and his face grew deathly pale. Then he remembered that she was his betrothed wife, and he smiled.

“In love? Oh, yes, why not?” he faltered; “and I wish to say to you to-night, Miss Raleigh, that I—”

“Hush!” smiling archly into his face, “I have surprised a tender secret. Come with me, Mr. Lyndon; I want to show you a pretty scene!”

She opened a side door which led into the grounds, and, quite bewildered, Jack followed the graceful figure in black velvet and pearls, with a crimson shawl wrapped about her shoulders. On to the furthest extremity of the grounds, to the east gate. Rosamond halted, and motioned Jack to be silent. In the clear moonlight everything was visible, and this is what Jack Lyndon saw: The girl who only that morning had promised to be his wife—Lillian Leigh—clasped close in the arms of a man. And the pale[Pg 63] radiance of the moonlight glinting down upon the pair revealed to Jack’s agonized eyes—the form and face of Richard Raleigh!

Lillian had gone to the rendezvous at the last gate with perfect confidence, and with no thought of Richard Raleigh in her mind. The night was very beautiful. The moonlight silvered all things, and by its pale, clear radiance she made her way to the trysting-place. Her heart was filled with quiet happiness. Jack loved her. To Lillian Leigh the beginning and the end of all things was comprised in those words. Jack loved her, and wanted her to be his wife. Of his poverty she never thought. He earned a reasonable salary, and it requires but little to keep two who are contented and satisfied with their lot in life—happy in being together.

Lillian had never been rich. She had never known the pleasure of having all the money that she wanted, a handsome home, rich dresses and costly jewels, servants to command, and a carriage in which to ride. What one has never possessed one can hardly miss; and she could see only happiness and prosperity in the future for herself and Jack. Ah! there never was any one like Jack! So handsome, so brilliant, so manly and good! Her heart was thrilling with love and devotion toward Jack Lyndon as she hastened to meet this stranger who had written and asked her to come. A clew to her father’s murderer! The very thought made her heart beat fierce and fast within her breast.

“He shall be brought to justice, no matter who he may be!” she muttered, as she hurried onward.

The gate was reached at last, and Lillian came to a halt. There was no one there. A rustic seat stood near[Pg 64] under a huge beech-tree. She seated herself and drew her white cloak closer about her shoulders.

“I wonder who it is and why he does not come?” she said to herself, impatiently, and just a little frightened to be out alone at that hour so far from the house.

Crash! through the underbrush came the sound of heavy footsteps. Pale and frightened, Lillian started to her feet. The branches of the beech-tree grew thickly around her, although denuded now of leaves. A hand pushed the branches aside, and a tall, dark form loomed up before her in the moonlight.

One glance, and she fell back pale and trembling with horror too deep for words.

“No, I suppose not. That was a surprise which I held in reserve for you—a pleasant surprise, I trust, my dear. Lillian, listen to me. Do not turn coldly away; I have something to say to you, and, so help me Heaven, I mean every word that I utter! Lillian, I love you! Stop! I mean no insult. I love you purely, honorably, with all my heart, and I ask you to be my wife. Do not look so scornful; pause and reflect before you decline an alliance with a Raleigh.”

She stood before him pale as marble, her large dark eyes lifted to his face in wordless scorn.

“Mr. Raleigh, let me pass!” she commanded, coldly. But he caught her hands in his own.

“Stay, Lillian. No, I do not intend to be violent or rude with you. I ask you to listen quietly to me, as quietly as you would listen to Lyndon—curse him!—if he were to make love to you as he does to every woman who is foolish enough to listen to him. Ah, I guessed your secret, my sweet Lillian; but when you have heard all[Pg 65] that I have come to say, I imagine that you will change your mind. Lillian, I wrote and asked you to meet me here to-night that I might reveal the name of your father’s murderer. It is more than a mere clew that I possess, Lillian Leigh—I know the man who took your father’s life.”

She was trembling like an aspen, her white hands clasped, her dark eyes shining like stars.

Richard Raleigh bent his head, and his dusky eyes studied her face with a fierce, eager intensity.

“If I tell you what reward will you give me, Lillian?” he queried, earnestly; “will you promise to be my wife?”

She threw back her head with a haughty gesture, and faced him with fearless contempt.

“No! a thousand times, no!” she panted, angrily. “I can conceive of no conditions, no circumstances, under which I would consent to marry you, Richard Raleigh! You are a bad man, a base, wicked man, and I despise and condemn you. And I have no right to listen to words of love from you, for I am already betrothed!”

“Is it possible?” he cried. “Since when, may I ask? I have a good reason for my question.”

An awful look flashed over Raleigh’s face. He grew pale, and his eyes held a strange, lurid, brassy light.

“Jack Lyndon! Curse him! He is always in my way!” he snarled. “He is a gay Lothario, making love to every woman, every pretty face that he meets. To my certain knowledge he has talked all sorts of soft nonsense to Rosamond. He has other strings to his bow, and now you too. Oh, Lillian,” in a tone of sad reproach and regret, “I would rather see you dead than deceived and[Pg 66] misled by Jack Lyndon. He is a notorious lady-killer, and a man of no honor—”

“Stop! Not another word, Mr. Raleigh. I will not listen. Jack Lyndon is good and true—upright and honorable. Such a nature as his is beyond your comprehension.”

“Beyond my comprehension? I grant that,” he returned, sardonically. “But if you believe for a moment that Jack Lyndon is true to you, if you believe for a second that when he is absent from you he does not make love to other women—what, irresistible Jack! Beauty, as he is called!—I will soon undeceive you. I have it in my power to do so. Look!”

He took from the seat where he had placed it a field-glass of remarkably strong magnifying power. By its aid any object could be distinguished a half a mile away. Richard Raleigh arranged the glass which he turned upon the drawing-room windows of the house. He brought it within easy range by stepping into a side-path, clear from obstructing trees and shrubbery.

She scarcely realized what she was doing. Under ordinary circumstances Lillian Leigh would have shrunk from such an action; but almost before she was aware of it, she found herself peering through the glass straight in at Miss Raleigh’s drawing-room window. This is what she saw:

Rosamond Raleigh seated in a low velvet chair, and Jack Lyndon leaning over her, gazing into her face with eager eyes, while one hand held hers. Lillian turned away with a shudder.

She made no reply. What could she say? If Jack[Pg 67] Lyndon were false and treacherous, in whom could she believe? Sick and faint, she turned away, and seating herself upon the rustic seat, she covered her face with her hands. How long a time passed in silence she knew not. The silence was broken at last by Raleigh’s voice.

“Lillian, would you know the truth—the bad, black, dreadful truth? Listen to me, then, and believe that I speak truly, Lillian Leigh.”

With a moan of anguish she fell at his feet, and lay there for a time quite oblivious to all that had come upon her. Not unconscious, not in an ordinary swoon. There are blows which fall crushing upon the human heart with such force, such awful paralyzing force, that they benumb the brain and bring a dull torpor upon the senses, crushing the mind and the reason for the time being, because they are not strong enough to believe and accept the full force of the awful shock. In some such a trance poor Lillian lay for a time. At last Raleigh stooped and lifted the slight black-robed form in his arms, adjusting the white cloak about her with a tender touch. It was certain that with all his vices there was a soft, tender spot in his heart for Lillian. But his face was set and stern, and low under his breath he murmured, faintly:

“I have half a mind to give up the whole business and run away. But, no; there is too much involved. Father has revealed too much; I have promised, and I can not go back now that I have started on the road to success. I have put my hand to the plow and must not turn back. I must go on to the bitter end, no matter what the consequences may be.”

And as he lifted Lillian in his arms to place her upon the rustic seat, just at that juncture Rosamond had appeared with Jack Lyndon. But neither Lillian nor Richard Raleigh dreamed of such a thing.

One swift glance of horror, just long enough to know[Pg 68] and realize that his eyes had not deceived him, or the moonlight played any trick with his eyesight, and Jack Lyndon wheeled swiftly about and retraced his steps to the house, followed at a little distance by Rosamond, her heart full of gratified triumph. She had succeeded beyond her wildest hopes.

The goal was very nearly won. If only she were patient and played her cards properly all would yet be well.

Back in the drawing-room once more, Jack seated himself without a word. He felt in a mood for anything now—reckless and desperate—fit for any mad deed. Lillian was false. If that were so—and how could he doubt the evidence of his own eyesight?—then there was not a woman in the world worth caring for, worth trusting in. As he sat in moody silence a soft hand was laid upon his forehead, smoothing the hair from his brow, and a low, magnetic voice murmured, sweetly:

“Jack, don’t look so down-hearted. What in the world is the matter? There,” with a low, rippling laugh, “I hear Lillian coming into the house—the little deceiver. Shall I call her in here and question her?”

“Forbear!” he cried, lightly. “To intrude upon her happiness would be unkind. Come, Rosamond,” calling her by that name for the first time in his life, “let us sit here and have a pleasant chat and shut out all the world—all false women and men, all deceit and wrong-doing. Let us be a veritable Darby and Joan, for one night only, as the play-bills say.”

Poor though he was, she had learned to love the brilliant young journalist with a mad, unceasing love of which no one believed her capable. And she had made up her mind to marry him.

To-night he was so reckless and defiant, so desperate and bitter, that Rosamond’s gentle sympathy, her ignoring of the possibility of Lillian having any claim upon his affections, all had its own deadly effect.

And sitting at Rosamond’s side in the dimly lighted drawing-room, fully convinced of Lillian’s falseness and unworthiness, and therefore considering himself free from her, Jack Lyndon made the mad mistake of his life. He asked Rosamond Raleigh to be his wife, and Miss Raleigh promptly accepted him.

Senator Van Alstyne’s splendid mansion was ablaze with light. It looked like a fairy palace, glittering with its brilliant illumination. Within, the great rooms were thrown open, and wreathed and decorated with flowers, with banks of roses and jasmine, and a flower-wreathed nook from behind which a band of musicians sent forth strains of music maddening, intoxicating. A grand reception was taking place, and Senator Van Alstyne, in all the ugliness of conventional evening-dress, was prominent among his aristocratic guests, his red face fairly shining with gratified pride and flattered vanity. In the center of the great drawing-room stood a queenly figure in a sweeping robe of white velvet, with diamonds sparkling all over her white lace overdress like fairy frost-work glittering with dew-drops. She was pale and cold and proud, and in the depths of the beautiful dark eyes there was a weary look—a look of self-scorn.

“I am pitiably weak,” she was saying to herself, with bitter self-contempt, “for I ought to have asserted my dignity as a woman; and when that blow was struck me—that cowardly, unmanly blow—it would have been better,[Pg 70] and I would have more self-respect now, if I had gone away. Gone to toil and hardship—to work, to starve and die, and be out of all this gilded misery. For, oh! if it be true, and if he is living, what am I? I dared not read the entire letter, for Van Alstyne would have taken forcible possession of it; so I do not know his address, or where he is, or where to write. Heaven help me!” she murmured, feebly. “What shall I do?”

Yet all the time these bitter thoughts were running riot through her brain she was standing, the cynosure of all eyes, in the sumptuous drawing-room, in her white velvet and point lace and sparkling diamonds, the most admired, even as she was the most beautiful, woman present. And like a huge watch-dog Senator Van Alstyne moved about near her, his keen, ferret-like eyes keeping vigilant watch upon her movements.

“I will find out what is tormenting her so!” he declared, resolutely. “There is something wrong—some secret—and it is connected with that letter. The next letter that arrives for her shall be opened by my hands before ever she sees it. It is no more than right that I should know the contents of her letters. By Jove! she is my wife, and I am her lord and master!”

Just then his eyes fell upon a stylish, graceful little figure in trailing yellow silk and blood-red rubies. A pair of big, black, velvety eyes were uplifted with an admiring expression to his face—with a look which drew him to her side—and the great Senator Van Alstyne was soon engrossed with Mrs. Vernon, a notorious flirt and belle, who looked upon all men as lawful prey, and lost no opportunity of subjugation. There was a Mr. Vernon, too; but then nobody ever troubled themselves in regard to him, save only as Mrs. Vernon’s husband. She monopolized all masculine attention, and in her sweet, innocent, childish way had been guilty of more cruelty, responsible for more family feuds and conjugal infelicities than any other[Pg 71] woman in the city. Yet she had always contrived to escape blame or censure, and if any one ventured to blame her she posed as a martyr, and was looked upon as the victim of envious foes.

“My dear senator,” she cooed sweetly, as she laid her white-gloved finger-tips upon his black coat-sleeve, and prepared for an agreeable promenade, “I really must congratulate you upon the success of your entertainment. It is recherché; it is the most perfect that I have ever witnessed. And how superbly beautiful Mrs. Van Alstyne looks to-night! No wonder everybody falls in love with her. That reminds me to ask you the name of her new admirer—the stranger who haunts her like a shadow. He is so handsome—perfectly splendid. With such an interesting pallor, and large, dark, melancholy eyes, silky black mustache and wavy dark hair. I declare he is just for all the world like the Giaour and all of dear, delightful, awfully wicked Lord Byron’s heroes! And he looks at Lenore—Mrs. Van Alstyne—with such a look! What is his name, did you say, senator?”

And she knew full well that the jealous old senator had not said, and did not know, and it was for that very reason that she had broached the subject. For Lenore had been so coldly proud in her reception of Mrs. Vernon that that lady could not find it in her heart to forgive her, and instead had vowed to pay her back.

She watched Van Alstyne’s face change from smiling red to angry purple, and his small eyes snap with displeasure. She noticed, too, the clinched hand and hard, labored breathing. Nothing escaped her eager, malicious eyes.

“I have not the pleasure of knowing all Mrs. Van Alstyne’s friends,” he returned, stiffly. “Be good enough to point him out to me, Mrs. Vernon. Perhaps I can tell you his name if I have the pleasure of seeing the gentleman.”

“Ah, yes, to be sure! I am always doing foolish, childish things,” in a tone of mock sorrow. “Forgive me, senator—please; and I’ll promise, like the naughty boy, never to do it again. There! I see my fascinating hero—the mysterious unknown. He is standing not far from Mrs. Van Alstyne. She does not appear to see him at all; but some magnetism draws him thither—sort of needle and the pole attraction, you know,” with a silly laugh.

Van Van Alstyne’s greenish eyes followed the direction in which Mrs. Vernon was gazing. He saw a tall, graceful figure in faultless evening-dress standing near Lenore. A wondrously handsome man with a decidedly foreign aspect, dark Oriental eyes, and pale, statuesque face. Lenore evidently did not observe him. She was engaged in conversation with a group of ladies and their attendant cavaliers, but the stranger stood still as a statue, his eyes fastened upon her like one who is biding his time, waiting patiently for his hour to come. And still without observing him she turned aside and wandered away to the conservatory. Van Alstyne’s eyes shone with a lurid light, and he set his yellow teeth close together, hissing forth a naughty word from between them. He arose to his feet; Mrs. Vernon arose also and laid her hand upon his arm. He could not shake her off, and he knew it; it was best also to keep in Mrs. Vernon’s good graces, so the wily senator was compelled to stifle his yearnings in the direction of the conservatory—the conservatory which Lenore entered and went on straight to her doom.

She wandered down the flower-scented aisles with a tinkling fountain splashing dreamily and tropical birds singing overhead in their gilded cages—birds that, like herself, had been taken in their wild beauty and imprisoned in a glittering prison against which they might beat their wings in vain, for they could never escape—nothing would free them but death. Lenore caught her breath with a weary little sigh.

“Nothing but death,” she murmured, softly; “and I have the means of escape always with me.”

She gazed upon one white finger on which a large solitaire diamond glittered in the gas-lighted conservatory like living fire.

“No one would ever dream,” she went on, drearily, “that under this shining stone there lies a drop of poison—such subtle, deadly poison, and so swift in its effect, that I have only to press the hidden spring in this ring to find death and eternal quiet.”

A voice at her side—a rich, sweet voice, speaking in a cautious tone. She started, and her face grew white as marble. She pressed one hand against her heart, with a low cry. One swift glance around the place, and then both white hands were laid in his, and a voice full of suppressed delight murmured, faintly:

“Cyril! Good God! can it be you? I could not believe it—I could not believe it even when I saw your letter! Oh, Cyril! Cyril!”

She threw herself into his arms, her proud head pillowed upon his breast, her white arms wound about his neck, and lay there in a very trance of delight.

“Oh! my love—my love!” she murmured, softly. “After all these years, to hold you thus once more! But, Cyril,” starting up with wide-open, wild, dilated eyes and a face of ashen pallor, “stop—and think! You—you know all; and in your letter you said that if I would see you, you would be able to explain away all the awful mistake of the past. Tell me, Cyril—tell me, oh! my beloved, you were not all to blame!”

“So help me Heaven, I was not to blame!” he said, fervently. “We were duped, betrayed, deceived—you and I. It was not my fault—it was not our sin; and for seventeen years—seventeen long, dark, bitter years—we have walked apart upon this earth—you and I. But no[Pg 74] human power shall part us now, my darling—no one can come between us ever any more.”

His eyes flashed. He stooped and whispered a few words in her ear—words which made the blood leap madly in her veins.

“I can and will, my beloved!” He held her close to his heart once more, and showered kisses upon the sweet red lips. “You are mine, Lenore!” he whispered, tenderly. “All this mystery shall be cleared up, and the world shall know the martyr you have been.”

Footsteps! She sprung to an upright position and hastened away, while her companion turned to encounter the scowling face of the master of the house—and upon his arm, smiling, giggling, the irrepressible Mrs. Vernon, her black eyes twinkling with gratified malice and spite.

Slowly Lillian aroused herself, and in perfect ignorance of what had taken place just a few feet away from the scene of her own sorrow, sat up pale and trembling, Richard Raleigh bending over her.

“It is true, Lillian,” he said, gravely, “all true. But, unless I speak, there is no proof—no way of proving to the world the deed of which I accuse that man. We must be quiet and wait patiently for the next developments. Lillian, promise to be my wife, and I swear to unearth the murderer and deliver him up to justice.”

He was speaking fast and in low, eager tones. His face had grown deathly pale—a strange, unearthly pallor—and great drops of perspiration stood upon his brow. She put up her hands with a repelling gesture.

“Keep away!” she cried, wildly. “There is no truth in you, Richard Raleigh! You are bad and false, and I do not believe you. Keep away! Do not trouble me more, for my brain reels, and I am weak and faint and half insane!”

Her eyes were glittering with a feverish light; her hands were hot and trembling; her breath came in fitful gasps. She looked ill and weak.

“It is all true, Lillian,” Raleigh repeated once more. “It is a hard thing to say—hard, hard; but the truth can not be denied. I repeat to you boldly—to you, the daughter of the dead man, Gilbert Leigh—that Jack Lyndon took your father’s life!”

“Don’t!” she panted, hoarsely. “If there is any pity, any mercy in your heart, Richard Raleigh, do not repeat that false lie! Why should he do such a fiendish deed? What motive could he have had?”

Raleigh’s eyes flashed. If she would only discuss the matter with him, there was a hope of convincing her of the truth of his words.

“Why, indeed?” he repeated. “Why should anybody have had cause? Yet the awful deed was done. I will tell you all if you have strength to listen; I will repeat the circumstances of the affair just as I witnessed it, and then you can judge for yourself. I was coming home from Mrs. Howard’s reception, Lillian, on the night of your father’s murder. It was late, and I had walked, so I hurried onward, my head bent, my thoughts busy. All at once I heard the sound of footsteps, and as the street was deserted—I was coming down the street upon which you then lived, Lillian—it attracted my attention, and glancing up I saw your father, Gilbert Leigh, on the opposite side. I was about to cross over and join him when the electric light went out into darkness—you know their exasperating[Pg 76] ways—and when I was able to see once more, I observed your father in eager conversation with another man. It was very near your own door, Lillian; and just then you opened your window and glanced out as though looking for your father. I saw your sweet face and I halted; forgive me, Lillian, I could not help thinking it was the sweetest face in the round world. Your father was just beyond the range of your window; you could not see him, so you closed your blind and I turned away. Stepping on a few paces, I caught the sound of men’s voices in angry altercation, and once more I halted.

“‘I will not!’ responded your father, firmly. ‘It does not belong to me but to my employers, and I will defend it with my life!’

“Then an awful pause, broken by a smothered groan and a sound like some one struggling upon the pavement. I dashed across the street, and there I found—don’t look at me with such horror-stricken eyes, Lillian—I found your father in the grasp of murderous hands, just breathing his last. Over him stood his murderer—that man, Jack Lyndon. Why did I not denounce him at once, you ask? Lillian, it was through sympathy and pity for you. He told me that he was your intended husband; that your father had treated him villainously; he fell upon his knees before me and begged me to spare him and let him go free. I weakly consented out of pity for you, oh, my beloved, never dreaming that the day was coming when I too should bow before you in humble supplication for your love. I have carried this secret about in my heart, corroding and poisoning my whole life, until I can keep silent no longer. And now, Lillian, that you have heard all, what will you do?”

“Denounce my father’s murderer, and give him up to justice!” she said, in a low, stern voice.

“Lillian, listen. The secret is ours. No one else in the wide world, but you and I, has any knowledge of his crime. Shall I denounce him, or shall you? You did care for him once; but you shall, if you wish, deliver him over into the cruel hands of the law.”

She covered her face with her hands, sobbing and trembling in a weak, womanish way.

“I can not—I can not!” she sobbed, bitterly. “No, no; a thousand times no! I will not speak! I will die before I will denounce Jack Lyndon! I can not believe it; it is all false—false—false!”

“It is true, Lillian; and because it is true I am going to denounce him to the authorities—Jack Lyndon, the murderer of your father!”

“You shall not! You must not!” wringing her hands in wild beseeching. “Have pity—have mercy! My brain is reeling—I know not what I say. Only spare him! I—I loved him once—loved my father’s murderer! Oh, God! And I stood beside my father’s body and vowed to deliver his murderer up to justice! What a weak—pitifully weak wretch I am!”

“You are a woman, consequently weak in resolution where one you love is concerned. Let me do it, Lillian! I will deliver Jack Lyndon into the hands of the law. I must; it is my duty.”

“Richard”—calling him by his name, in a voice full of heart-break, seizing his hand in both her burning palms—“listen to me. If you do this thing—if you persist in this determination—if you denounce Jack Lyndon to the authorities, I will take my own life!”

For just a moment, silence—awful silence; then Richard caught the girl’s slight, trembling form in his arms and held her close against his breast.

“Darling, I love you! My God, how I love you!” he panted. “Be mine, Lillian—be my wife, loved and honored; the wife of Richard Raleigh, only son of Grafton Raleigh, millionaire. It is no position to scorn. Be my wife, Lillian, and I swear to let Jack Lyndon go free, to hold my peace, and leave him to God and his own conscience! Refuse me, and I will—I must—let the law take its course! But I prefer to give up the pursuit, to let remorse do its own work in Jack Lyndon’s breast—a Nemesis to hunt him down. Believe me, Lillian, if the dead—the holy dead—can behold us, he, your departed father, will approve—would say, if his dumb lips were unsealed: ‘Daughter, forego vengeance. Leave that to Heaven.’”

He paused and gazed around him in the pale moonshine. What ailed the moonlight? It seemed to grow suddenly dim and obscure, as though the moon were in an eclipse. A strange chill had crept into the air; an awful unseen presence seemed to stand at their sides. Lillian glanced up with a convulsive shudder.

“Who called me?” she cried, wildly. “Mr. Raleigh, I swear to you I heard my father’s voice—my dear, dead, murdered father call clearly, distinctly, ‘Lillian!’”

He caught her to his heart once more. She had no strength left to repulse him now.

“Superstitious child!” he cried. “Darling, my life is in your hands; what are you going to do with it? Think it all over, and let me know your decision. Be my wife at once, and be lifted out of this poverty. You need not fear my parents’ displeasure; I know how to win their consent, and I swear before high Heaven, I swear before my Maker, by all my hopes of happiness, to let Jack Lyndon go free and unaccused! Will you consider it, Lillian, and[Pg 79] give me your answer to-morrow? Meet me at this place at ten to-morrow night. Will you come, Lillian?”

“Yes; I will be here with my answer to-morrow night at ten,” she returned, mechanically.

She slipped away and up the path like a wild creature, back to the house, and fled upstairs to Miss Raleigh’s chamber, where she threw herself down upon the rug before the fire, shivering violently. Not a word did she utter. Her heart was in a tumult, her brain seemed on fire. The closing of the outer door of the house aroused her at last, and she knew that Jack was gone. Click! click! came the sound of high heels, and a little later Miss Raleigh entered her room. Her face was all aglow with triumph as she sunk into an easy-chair.

“Come and take off my shoes, Lillian,” she commanded. “I feel like sitting up till morning, for I am just too happy to sleep! Oh, Lillian! I must tell somebody, or my heart will burst with its burden of gladness! Lillian, Jack Lyndon has asked me to be his wife; and, poor though he is, I love him, and have accepted him. He loves me so dearly—so very dearly, Lillian—and he has loved me so long, but feared to speak before. Lillian!”—with a voice full of horror—“look!”

She had started to her feet with a gasp of terror. All of a sudden the gas-light had begun to grow dim and burn with a faint, blue, unearthly glow. And then—then—the door of the round room opened slowly—slowly—and there, upon the threshold, pale and wan and pathetic, with one hand pressed upon her heart, and great, sad, dark eyes lifted to Miss Raleigh’s horrified face with a look of wild beseeching—stood the apparition of Noisette.

Rosamond Raleigh’s blue eyes grew black as night as they stared in wildest terror into the face of the apparition.

A convulsive tremor crept over her frame. She fell back a few paces and lifted her hands with a maddened gesture.

“Keep back! keep back!” she shrieked. “My God! am I never to be free from this horrible thing? Lillian—look—for the love of Heaven, look!”

Lillian had been standing all this time, white and wild-eyed, gazing before her upon the awful sight. She turned aside with a low groan.

“Miss Raleigh, it is really true”—the girl’s voice was low and faint—“you are—you must be—haunted! I have never believed in such things before, but I can not doubt the evidence of my own eyesight upon so many occasions. I, of course, have never seen the young girl Noisette Duval, but you seem to recognize her.”

“Recognize her!” with a hysterical laugh. “I should think so indeed. Even that endless painting upon which she is always working is familiar to me. She died, stricken down by heart disease, in the round room yonder, while engaged in painting poppies and vine leaves upon an amber satin panel for a ball-dress—just the loveliest thing. Oh, Lillian!”—bursting into a flood of hysterical tears—“I have never been able to wear amber—so becoming to me, too—since that day. There—thank Heaven, it is gone!” sinking into a seat with a sigh of intense relief.

Lillian came slowly forward and removed Miss Raleigh’s dainty kid boots, substituting velvet slippers; and then, Rosamond having donned a comfortable wrapper, Lillian began her nightly task of brushing out her long yellow[Pg 81] hair. She was silent and sad; her heart lay quivering on her breast, bowed down with that awful weight of dull anguish and despair. Surely she was but a foot-ball of fate. What a burden for such young shoulders to bear! Yet she must bear it and be silent—for the present at least.

And while her heart was aching madly in her breast she stood and brushed out the silky hair of the idle, contemptuous beauty who was going to marry the man whom Lillian Leigh loved—the man who, with unheard-of fickleness, had asked her to marry him only that morning, and then at night had besought—oh, the irony of fate!—the woman who employed her as waiting-maid—servant—to be his wife. Could such perfidy be possible?

There is not a woman in the world who will fail to understand the emotions which racked the poor girl’s heart as these thoughts rushed through it like a torrent. Love—deep and devoted love—which at the same time was full of scorn and contempt; despair, anguish unutterable, yet all the time the pride of a woman to uphold her. Ah! woman’s pride—woman’s pride! When God made woman weak and loving, with such utter self-abnegation in her love, He gave her also the delicate, sensitive instinct which keeps many a woman’s feet from by and forbidden paths. The pride which is part of a woman’s nature will sustain and uphold her ofttimes when nothing else will. There are women—Heaven help them!—who have nothing left them but their womanly pride. Pure and cold as snow and hard as adamant, it stands like a glittering wall of ice between her and the world. That pride was all that Lillian Leigh had to lean upon now, in her hour of darkness. It was her rock and her defense in time of trouble.

“I shall be married soon,” observed Rosamond, complacently, yet glancing furtively about her with frightened eyes; “for if I remain much longer in this house I shall die of fright. Of course Jack has but small means, but I have money enough for us both, and—”

“And he will consent to live upon your money?” burst forth Lillian, impetuously. “Miss Raleigh, I could never respect a man who would do that!”

“My dear Lillian, you have not been asked to respect Mr. Lyndon. And as for living upon my money—that question lies between ourselves solely and absolutely. Mr. Lyndon is not accountable to you, or any of my servants, I hope!”

Lillian made no reply. The hot blood rushed to her white face in a surging flood; then it receded, leaving her pale as death.

“May I go now, Miss Raleigh?” she asked, wistfully. “See, the clock’s hands are pointing to one; and I am very tired.”

“Yes, go!” ungraciously. “I imagine that I shall not be disturbed again to-night. I must devise some plan to get rid of or outwit this ghostly visitant—to guard against its reappearance. I must put a stop to it!”

She started as the audacious words passed her lips, her face took on a deathly pallor, and her eyes dilated with sudden horror. Surely that was a laugh—a low, sweet, mocking laugh which had fallen upon the silence as though defying her to do her worst. Rosamond fell back into the chair from which she had just arisen, and sat clutching wildly at its carved arms.

“Lillian, as surely as you live, that was Noisette’s voice—Noisette’s laugh. I remember it well, although she seldom laughed aloud. She was a grave, quiet, taciturn girl—one who had little to say, and was never demonstrative or merry. Yet I swear that was Noisette Duval who laughed then as though in derision. Don’t go to bed now, Lillian, for Heaven’s sake! I will not stay here alone now. No, I will retire, and you may go after I am asleep. I[Pg 83] will take a sedative, and will be sound asleep in a short time.”

Utterly selfish, the cruel woman did not pause to reflect upon the terrors which Lillian was suffering. The poor girl was timid and nervous as any other woman would have been under the circumstances, and she longed to reach the privacy of her own chamber—longed intensely to be alone, to stare her sad future in the face. But the woman unfortunate enough to be employed by Rosamond Raleigh was allowed no time to weep over her own sorrows.

Rosamond hurriedly prepared herself for bed; then she went to an Indian cabinet which stood in all the glory of quaint carving in one corner of the room, and opening it, took a bottle from one of the shelves. The vial bore a suggestive label—two cross-bones surmounted by a grinning skull, and below, in large letters, “Chloral—Poison!”

“Oh, Miss Raleigh,” interposed Lillian, “surely you will not take that? It might kill you.”

“Nonsense, you little goose! I always take it when I am disturbed at night. It is the only thing that makes me sleep.”

She took a golden spoon from the cabinet and dropped a few drops of the chloral into some water, then hastily swallowing the dose, she returned the vial to the cabinet and retired for the night. Five minutes later she was wrapped in a heavy, sluggish slumber.

Free at last, Lillian turned the gas down to the faintest glimmer, and at last sought her own room. The fire had gone out, the lamp burned low. She went straight to bed and lay there all the rest of the night, her eyes wide open, while she tried to stare her future in the face. The pale gray light of dawn creeping in at the window found her still sleepless; but at last she sunk into an unquiet sleep which lasted until the dressing-bell rang.

She awoke with a start, and, pale and spiritless, arose and made her simple toilet. With light footsteps she entered Miss Raleigh’s sleeping-room. Rosamond lay sleeping soundly, so Lillian dropped the shades over the windows, extinguished the gas, and softly withdrew.

One day—only one brief day, and then she must give Richard Raleigh his answer. Her whole future hung trembling in the balance, and before the sun should set that night her decision must be made.

Coming down-stairs on her way to the conservatory to gather a bouquet for Rosamond’s boudoir, Lillian accidentally encountered the master of the house. His face looked pale and grave, and there was an air of preoccupation about the pompous millionaire which she had never observed before. To her amazement, at sight of her, Mr. Raleigh stopped short, and a smile from which she shrunk involuntarily crossed his lips.

“Ah, good-morning, Miss Leigh,” he said, pleasantly, unctuously. “How are you this fine morning? I am afraid that you are working too hard. You look pale—too pale, Lillian. I do not wish you to be overworked, and really the work is unsuited for you. We will find you something better—something better,” with a smile and a pat of the girl’s soft hand which he had taken in his own. “This occupation is entirely out of place,” resumed the millionaire, blandly; “this is no business for Gilbert Leigh’s daughter—no, indeed! It is a shame that you should hold a position of this kind in my household, and I mean to put an end to it.”

Utterly overwhelmed, Lillian could only bow and murmur something unintelligible in regard to his kindness, and then she withdrew her hand and hurried to the conservatory, feeling very uncomfortable and far from easy in her mind. Grafton Raleigh had never noticed her before, save in a chance encounter in the hall or some of the rooms, when the stiffest of bows would be all the notice[Pg 85] ever vouchsafed by him to his daughter’s waiting-maid. Lillian did not like this sudden change of demeanor, and she hurriedly gathered her flowers and retreated up the stairs, with a vague terror creeping into her heart, a feeling that some new calamity was threatening her.

The breakfast hour in the handsome breakfast-room found Mrs. Raleigh, her husband and son, alone at the table.

“I wonder what keeps Rosamond so late?” observed Richard, turning over the pile of letters beside his plate.

“That girl is getting altogether too indolent!” he observed. “And I do think she keeps that little maid of hers up half the night, Helen!”—turning swiftly to his wife at the head of the table, behind the silver urn. “I insist that you inquire into this matter. The girl is no common servant, remember, and she may astonish you some day.”

“Well, I declare,” she burst forth, indignantly, “wonders will never cease! My daughter’s waiting-maid must indeed be possessed of rare graces to have attracted the attention of the fastidious Grafton Raleigh. Rest assured—Ah, there comes Rosamond now! The poor child has had a bad night. I can see that at a glance.”

The door of the breakfast-room had swung slowly open, and Rosamond, in a pale-blue wrapper which made her pale face look even more death-like, glided into the room. She was wan and haggard, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. At sight of her, her mother’s face grew stern.

“Rosamond”—in a reproving voice—“you have been taking chloral again.”

Rosamond halted just within the door, which she closed[Pg 86] behind her. She glanced into her mother’s face as she burst forth in a shrill treble:

“Yes, I have been taking it, and I shall be compelled to resort to it every night or never sleep again on earth if something is not done to relieve me of the visitations from which I suffer. Papa—mamma! it is the truth, so help me Heaven! I am haunted—haunted by the spirit of Noisette Duval. I am never safe from it. It comes when I am sad and when I am cheerful; it comes at night and at day; when I am alone and when Lillian is present! And, papa”—wringing her hands nervously—“I have concluded to ask—to beg of you—permission to have the round room closed up forever. Will you consent, papa?”

Mr. Raleigh sneered and frowned and objected, but he ended by being overruled. Before noon of that day half a dozen workmen were busily engaged in sealing up the pretty octagonal chamber. The door of communication between it and Rosamond’s sleeping-room was removed, the aperture closed, and the wall papered to correspond with the rest of the room. The door leading into the hall was also removed, and when the work was completed Rosamond congratulated herself upon having completely exorcised the spirit which so persistently haunted her.

Silence in the conservatory, where we left Senator Van Alstyne standing, red and angry, in the presence of the stranger who was also his guest.

The two men stood silently regarding each other. Van Alstyne’s ferret-like eyes glowed with a lurid light, an unpleasant sneer curled his sensual lip, half hidden by the long, carefully kept mustache.

Mrs. Vernon, still hanging on the senator’s arm, glanced[Pg 87] from one to the other, and thoroughly enjoyed the situation.

“I beg your pardon, sir. There is some mistake, doubtless;” the irate senator spoke with ill-concealed disgust; “but I have not the—ahem!—honor of your acquaintance, Mr.—”

“Fayne, sir—Cyril Fayne,” with quite as cold a salute as the senator himself had bestowed, and upon his matchless face a look of utter contempt and scorn.

So this was the man who had bought Lenore Vane with his gold. This creature who possessed so little of the true refinement of a gentleman that he would not receive a guest who was unknown to him with the calm courtesy due from one gentleman to another under any circumstances. And that Cyril Fayne was a gentleman was as patent to the observer as that Van Van Alstyne was not.

“Heaven help her! Her burden has been hard to bear. Poor Lenore—poor heart-broken Lenore! Curses upon the man—the man whom I believed years ago to be my friend, and who is to blame for all this misery! All the sorrow and anguish of our parting, and the seventeen long, dark, bitter years which lie between that time and now. Curse him! Wherever he is, I shall find him if he is still above ground. All her happiness blighted; all the best of my life spoiled; all the woe and anguish that have been mine until now—though I am not old, for I have seen but forty years—I feel as if my whole life had come to an end!”

And while these thoughts were rushing through his brain, he was standing still as a statue, while Van Van Alstyne’s eyes were searching his face with an ill-bred stare which at last became more than Cyril Fayne could endure.

“Possibly Senator Van Alstyne recognizes an old acquaintance in me!” he suggested, mockingly.

“No, I do not!” he cried, vehemently; “and I must say that my wife shows deuced small respect for her husband—her protector—by Jove! her lord and master—to receive men at her reception who are not only strangers to me, but whom she does not trouble herself to present to me!”

The two words fell like stones from Fayne’s lips; and the moment they were spoken he realized that he had made a mistake.

Senator Van Alstyne stared for a moment, too astonished to utter a word; then bristling with rage, he drew a step nearer, and Heaven only knows what atrocity might have been perpetrated, but down came a tiny gloved hand upon his arm, and a sweet voice cried, gayly:

“Come, senator, you promised to show me the datura! Now, don’t stand here squabbling over nothing, I beg of you! Of course Lenore—Mrs. Van Alstyne—will make everything clear. Dear me! if Mr. Vernon should make such a fuss over every gentleman whom I invite to our house without consulting his royal highness, he would live in a tumult for sure. Van Van Alstyne, you are as jealous as a Turk. Now, if I were your wife—”

The fascinating Mrs. Vernon possessed more influence over the doughty senator than any other living creature. Fayne bowed coldly and stepped aside for them to pass. While down went the senator’s iron-gray head, and his thick lips touched the gloved hand resting upon his arm, while he whispered, softly:

And thus you will perceive that senators, and even married senators, are not quite impervious to a little flirtation[Pg 89] with a pretty woman. And it is possible that, while they are so particular that their wives should be like Cæsar’s better half, “above suspicion,” the lives of many a public man are not beyond reproach. Van Van Alstyne’s creed was that a man can do as he feels inclined; a woman must conduct herself as she is directed. One creed for the man and another for the woman, and, of course, no equality. In this case the superiority was all upon one side, not the senator’s. And there are many men like Van Van Alstyne.

As soon as Cyril Fayne had disappeared, Mrs. Vernon lifted her great black velvety eyes with their belladonna brilliance and their delicately painted lids to the face of the man at her side with an affectation of child-like innocence.

“Where did dear Lenore disappear to?” she queried, sweetly. “Didn’t you see her when we entered the conservatory? No? Is it possible? Why, I saw her in close conversation with that delightful Mr. Fayne. I say, Van, he is delightful, isn’t he? No? Oh, you horrid creature! Of course, I don’t consider any man so nice as—as—you,” giggling like a school-girl. “There now, I am certain I see Lenore. Yes, to be sure. Nobody else wears white velvet, point lace, and such diamonds as Senator Van Alstyne’s lovely wife. And if there is not such a costume as I describe seated over yonder—there, by the banksia roses—then I’m a kitten, that’s all! Ah, Mrs. Van Alstyne,” as they suddenly appeared before Lenore, who glanced up with a swift start, “we have been looking for you everywhere. Why did you not present that handsome Mr. Fayne? You ought not to be so selfish as to keep him all to yourself, when half the ladies in the drawing-room yonder are just dying to know him. But the senator and I hunted him up and down, and Mr. Van Alstyne introduced himself, and we found that he is Mr. Cyril Fayne. So your pretty little mystery is a mystery no[Pg 90] longer. Lenore! Mrs. Van Alstyne! you are ill—you are going to faint!”

Lenore lifted her heavy eyes, and passed one hand over her brow as though to relieve the dull pain which was throbbing in her temples.

“Ill? No, no!” she gasped, feebly. “What were you saying, Mrs. Vernon, about—about some gentleman—Mr.—”

“Cyril Fayne,” supplemented Mrs. Vernon, promptly; “at least, so he introduced himself. Your husband has made his acquaintance, after a fashion. I do not imagine that they love each other very dearly, however. Certainly not a case of love at first sight.”

“Hardly!” growled the senator. “Why, the fellow actually sneered when I spoke of you, Lenore, as my wife! There! Bessie, she has fainted.”

Lenore had started to her feet, and then, with a long, quivering sigh, had fallen back into the chair once more, pale and still.

“Hush!” commanded Van Alstyne, as his companion evinced signs of excitement. “Be still, will you? I don’t want the whole crowd out yonder to gather in here—and the story would go the rounds of the newspapers to-morrow, with some infernal lie tacked on to it. Just hold her head, Bessie, while I get some water from the fountain yonder and bathe her head. Chafe her wrists a little. Gently—there!”

He hastened to the tiny fountain splashing dreamily into a marble basin, and soon returned with a silver cup full of its perfumed water. As he approached the recumbent form of his wife, Mrs. Vernon dropped something which she had been holding in her hand, with a hasty glance in his direction—and Van Van Alstyne did not know that the appearance of haste was assumed on purpose to excite his curiosity. He stepped swiftly to her side.

“Oh, nothing that you have not seen before, I dare say,” she returned. “Only a medallion that Lenore wears about her neck.”

“A medallion! I never gave it to her,” he panted. “Let me see it, Mrs. Vernon.”

And before Bessie Vernon could stop him—if she had wished to—he drew forth from its hiding-place about Lenore’s white throat, a black onyx locket in the shape of a medallion. An instant later he pressed the spring and the lid flew open. One glance, and with a hoarse cry of rage and jealous wrath too deep for articulate expression, Van Van Alstyne dropped into the nearest seat, and sat staring helplessly into Mrs. Vernon’s face. She laughed lightly.

“Ah! so you see that your cold, white marble women are not always as immaculate as they appear!” she sneered. “Lenore Van Alstyne is so good, so awfully, fearfully good! She will never flirt, or do anything just a little ‘off;’ she preaches domestic felicity—a regular Darby and Joan sort of existence; she frowns severely upon poor me because I like to flirt and am gay and full of life; and all the time, night and day, she wears about her neck, hidden from view, the portrait of a man who is not her husband. Do you see, Van Van Alstyne? This little thin chain to which the medallion is attached is riveted on. And do you recognize the face of the portrait? It is the face of Mr. Cyril Fayne.”

Silence—perfect silence. An awful tempest was raging within the man’s soul. He stood still as death. There was no sign of life save the slow rising and falling of his chest. His face was ghastly white; his under lip bleeding from the ferocity with which he had gnawed it; his hands were clinched fiercely together. He took a step in Lenore’s[Pg 92] direction, where she still lay, white and unconscious, rigid as though life were extinct. He lifted his strong right hand as though to strike her in all her helplessness. Swiftly the hand was uplifted, slowly it fell to his side once more. A strange expression crept over his face; an awful resolution settled down upon it like a mask. He turned, and his eyes met Bessie Vernon’s. He smiled. It was bad to see that cold, cruel smile.

“I will not touch her!” he muttered, hoarsely. “Put the trinket back where you found it, under the lace at her throat, Bessie; and keep your tongue still over this unpleasant scene, or—or I will make you sorry for it. We will let Mrs. Lenore Van Alstyne go on in her own road and say nothing at present. But the day will come—the day will surely come when she will wish that she had died to-night—here—now.”

He turned upon his heel and left the conservatory, Mrs. Vernon, with a scared look upon her pretty face, following closely in his wake. She felt like a child who has been playing with fire which suddenly burst forth into a conflagration which nothing could subdue.

And poor Lenore—poor wronged Lenore! who was innocent of sin, if only he had known or would have believed it, lay there still unconscious, like one dead. Better for her if she had been!

Nine! boomed from the big clock in a neighboring steeple; nine! tinkled musically from the gilded time-piece in Miss Raleigh’s boudoir.

Lillian started up with a cry of dismay, and the lace-work with which she had been risking her eyesight fell from her hands to the floor.

“One hour more,” she murmured, faintly, “only one[Pg 93] hour more, and then I must give Richard Raleigh his answer. Oh, Heaven, help and pity me!”

She was all alone in the dainty boudoir, for Rosamond was below in the drawing-room, entertaining a few guests—Mrs. Vernon and one or two more of Rosamond’s particular friends. And she was expecting Jack. Of course he would come, and then there would be an interview—a private interview—with papa in the library, and the poor journalist would ask for the hand of the millionaire’s daughter.

“And if papa refuses,” thought Rosamond, “for Jack is not rich, and papa may object—I—I shall marry him anyway! I am of age, fortunately.”

And then there flitted through her brain the thought of poverty, even though genteel poverty, with the man she loved, and her heart grew faint and sick within her breast.

“I could not bear to be poor!” she muttered, with a shudder of aversion. “I just could not endure it.”

And she sat in the drawing-room attired in a soft gray satin gown with a great deal of white lace, a subdued, Quakerish costume, quaint and becoming, and chatted with Bessie Vernon and the rest, and all the time her heart was listening for a ring at the door-bell, the sound of a familiar step in the hall.

“Rosamond,” whispered Mrs. Vernon, after awhile, “I have something to tell you—something rich! Are you engaged for twelve to-morrow? No?” as Rosamond shook her head in the negative. “Then I will call and see you. I want to tell you something, but you must be sure and never mention it, never, as long as you live. It is something about Lenore Van Alstyne.”

“Very well, I shall expect you to-morrow. And you may rely upon my secrecy, Bessie.”

And then Mrs. Vernon’s carriage was announced, and Mrs. Vernon took her departure, with a whispered reminder[Pg 94] to her hostess of the morrow’s engagement. And then the other callers left. Still Jack Lyndon had not made his appearance. What did it mean?

Feeling restless and uneasy, full of a strange disquiet, Rosamond threw a wrap about her shoulders and went out into the grounds. A glorious moonlight night. She wandered slowly down the nearest walk, and at last found herself in the vicinity of the east gate.

“I wonder what Rick meant by being out here last night with Lillian?” she muttered. “Some mischief, I have no doubt. But I don’t care what happens if only he keeps her away from Jack. I firmly believe that Jack cared for her; but I will kill her before she takes him from me.”

She came to a halt with a start of surprise. She had nearly reached the east gate, and her quick eyes had caught sight of two dark forms.

“I declare!” panted Miss Raleigh, in a low, wrathful voice, “it is Rick and that girl again. Now, this is too much—too much altogether. Papa would be so angry if he knew.”

Even as she gazed upon the scene Richard Raleigh took Lillian’s slight form in his arms and kissed her unresisting lips.

Miss Raleigh could endure no more. She darted swiftly forward and confronted the pair in the radiant moonlight, pale and wrathful.

“You shameless creature!” she panted, bringing her hand down upon Lillian’s shoulder with a fierce grip. “You shall leave my employ at once—this very night! As for you, Richard Raleigh, I shall tell papa of your shameful conduct, this moment—this very moment, sir, and he will settle with you. The idea of a disgraceful affair like this going on right under our very eyes!”

And before Lillian could recover from her bewilderment,[Pg 95] Rosamond turned swiftly about, and rushed like a mad woman back to the house. She burst into the drawing-room quite pale with excitement, and she came to a startled halt as her eyes fell upon Jack Lyndon. He had been closeted all the evening with Grafton Raleigh, though Rosamond had not suspected his presence in the house; and now in the drawing-room—the interview over—they sat conversing with Mrs. Raleigh and waiting for Rosamond to appear.

There was a hurried greeting, after which Rosamond, pale and excited, turned to her father.

“Papa—mamma, I beg your pardon, and Mr. Lyndon’s also, for rushing in upon you in this fashion. But really I must speak or you may reproach me for my silence later on. Papa, last night I saw your son, Richard Raleigh, down at the east gate, where he had evidently gone by appointment to meet my waiting-maid, Lillian Leigh. To-night I walked out into the grounds. I felt lonely,” with a glance of tender reproach into Jack’s startled face, “and chancing to walk in the same direction, I saw them there again. And, papa, Richard had that girl in his arms and—was actually kissing her!”

But the master of the house uttered no word. Pale and faint, Jack Lyndon leaned heavily against the marble mantel, supporting his head upon his hand and waiting for what was to come next.

“Mamma, it is true. Do not look so angry. It is not my fault. But I consider his conduct shameful—shameful! And that girl is a bold, shameless creature, not fit to be in the house with refined ladies. She is—”

“Hush! Not another word, Rosamond Raleigh!” She wheeled about swiftly, and there upon the threshold stood her brother, and at his side, pale and trembling, Lillian Leigh. “Not another word!” repeated Richard Raleigh, fiercely—“or you shall answer to me for your insults![Pg 96] Father, I have good news to tell you. I have asked Lillian to be my wife, and she has consented.”

It was as still as death in the luxurious drawing-room—the sudden, awful silence of the grave itself, so intense that it was almost palpable. It was broken at last by Helen Raleigh’s cold, cutting, imperious voice:

“Grafton,” her hard eyes uplifted to her husband’s face, “you are master here. I desire you to put an end to this shameful, disgraceful scene. Your son—my son,” with a hysterical sob, “who dares stand there and insult his own mother—I demand that he be punished as he deserves. And as for you,” she glided swiftly over to where Lillian stood, pale as marble and trembling like a leaf, and brought one white, jeweled hand down with a grip of iron upon the girl’s shrinking shoulder, “leave my house this moment, you miserable little wretch—you beggar! Begone, I say, or I shall—”

“Mother—stop! Not another word!” Richard Raleigh’s face was pale as death and his eyes flashed ominously. “I command you to be silent. This lady is my promised wife, and as such I swear that she shall be respected! Father, are you never going to speak?”

“Helen,” his voice was low and stern, “cease this tirade at once. Richard is right, and—and”—in a whisper—“he has reasons—good reasons—for the step. The girl is placed in a position which she is not fitted to fill,” he went on, in a louder tone. “She is pure and lovely; and Richard—ahem!—loves her, and she—ahem!—loves Richard, and I have promised not to interfere. I do not see—I do not see why they should not marry.”

Mrs. Raleigh could only stand and stare blankly into her husband’s flushed face. Sinking at last upon a velvet sofa, she still sat in blank, wordless silence, too overwhelmed to speak—too crushed by the suddenness of the blow to find words to utter. At last:

“Great heavens! am I mad, or am I dreaming? Grafton Raleigh, are you in your senses? You, Grafton Raleigh, millionaire—you, who have just listened quietly to the proposal for the hand of your only daughter from a beggarly journalist,” Jack Lyndon bowed mockingly, “you, who have listened, I say,” went on the irate lady, “and have decided to give him a chance to win Rosamond, your only daughter—”

A pause during which Rosamond flashed a swift glance into the pale face of her prospective betrothed, but failed to see any ecstatic joy mirrored upon his countenance. Mrs. Raleigh continued:

“You now permit your son—your only son—to say such words to a servant-girl—a common servant-girl—your daughter’s waiting-maid! Your son, who might have had his choice of half a dozen wealthy and fashionable women! Grafton Raleigh, if I did not believe—ay, know that you had gone mad—I would promise you to be revenged for this. But you are out of your senses, and I must be patient as possible. But I can not be patient!” she sobbed, starting to her feet and beginning to pace up and down the great room with nervous tread. “I shall die! I—shall—die! Oh, somebody do something for me—quick! I am going to faint—to die—to—die!”

And then followed an attack of hysterics which prostrated the irate mother entirely, and made Jack Lyndon cast wistful glances toward the door, through which for the present he dared not attempt to escape. After a little Mrs. Raleigh’s maid appeared and the patient was carried up to her own room, and a physician telephoned for, after which silence settled down once more.

Pale and still, the group in the drawing-room below stood gazing into each other’s faces. Jack was the first to break the strange, oppressive silence. He walked straight up to Lillian and held out his hand.

“Allow me to congratulate you, Miss Leigh,” he said, in a cold, hard voice. “You have done the best thing possible—for yourself.”

Lillian’s eyes flashed, she bowed coldly, but she did not seem to notice his offered hand. She could not take it. She could not shake hands with the man whom Richard Raleigh had accused of her father’s murder. With a shudder she turned aside, then she forced herself to glance back into his face again.

“And you,” she returned, quietly, her face pale with righteous indignation, “may you be as happy as you deserve.”

He turned away, pale and trembling, and with a brief, comprehensive good-night to the others, left the room.

“Jack,” in a low tone, “I am not yet clear as to the result of your interview with papa. He said—”

“That he would make no objection for the present—would let affairs take their own course, etc., etc.; but he stipulates that there shall be no engagement, and that the matter be kept secret for a year. Only I may call as often as I please, and be looked upon as an honored guest, and all that sort of thing, while you are to be left untrammeled. If any other suitor appears with more money, more brains, more good looks than I possess—”

“Jack!” in a tone of protest, and with a girlish giggle Rosamond threw herself into his arms.

For just a moment he submitted to the embrace, shutting his teeth down fiercely into his under lip; then he removed her clinging arms and turned toward the door.

“I must go, Rosamond,” he said, firmly. “I am expected down at the office for a good six hours’ work.”

“Poor fellow!” in a tone of tender compassion; “that shall soon be a thing of the past. For, of course, we shall be married some time, Jack, and—and then you need never work again.” He shuddered. “And it is absurd in papa,” she went on, vehemently, “to impose such conditions upon us. As though I could ever care for any one else. And if a richer suitor should make his appearance”—“Heaven grant it!” was Jack’s mental ejaculation—“it would make no difference to me, Jack, I assure you. Ah, must you go? Good-night, then.”

And a pair of thin lips were held up suggestively, so what could Jack do but bend his handsome head and touch them lightly with his own?

The first kiss! But, alas! Jack Lyndon was thinking even then of the lips which he had kissed only the morning before—or was it a century ago?

Sick and faint and heart-weary, he closed the door of the Raleigh mansion behind him and went down the street, pale and wan, his eyes full of moody light. He looked like a desperate gambler who has staked his all upon one throw of the dice—and lost.

“I hope to Heaven some wealthy suitor will come along and win her from me,” muttered this strange lover hoarsely, as he strode on down the broad, aristocratic avenue, back to the office of the “Thunderer.” “What a sham—what a miserable sham I am!” he burst forth, impetuously, “to ask a man for his daughter in marriage, hoping all the time that he will refuse me. And I actually believed that Grafton Raleigh almost suspected it, or he would hardly have listened so graciously to a proposal for Rosamond’s hand from a poor devil of a writer. Ah, me! I can only leave it to time and fate. How beautiful she was to-night!” he went on, suddenly breaking the silence which had fallen over him; “the woman who has blighted my faith in all womankind, and has caused me to make shipwreck of my whole life! She loved me only a[Pg 100] few hours ago!” he added, bitterly. “Yesterday she told me with tears in her eyes and kisses upon my lips that she loved me. To-night she is betrothed to a millionaire’s son. Good God! I would give my life to know the truth, and why she has changed so! Bah! what a fool I am! As though it were anything but the glittering bait which Richard Raleigh holds out to her! Yesterday morning she did not know that he meant marriage, so the poor newspaper scribbler was in favor. To-night there is the prospect of life in a fine house, with servants and jewels and costly dresses—bah! all that goes to make up a woman’s heaven—and for these she turns her back upon love and me, and accepts the glittering future. But one thing puzzles me.”

He came to a halt upon the deserted streets, and stood staring blankly through the semi-darkness.

“Why should Richard Raleigh wish to marry a poor girl like Lillian Leigh?” he went on, slowly. “And he really means honorable marriage, or he would never have taken the bold step of presenting her to his family as his betrothed wife. And why—why is Grafton Raleigh, the purse-proud millionaire, so resigned? Nay, more—I firmly believe that he is willing—is even pleased; for I surprised a look of intense satisfaction and relief upon his face while he listened to Richard’s words. Ah, well, it is a mystery to me,” he went on, as he plunged into the gloom of the nearest street corner and hastened on down-town—“a mystery which I may never unravel. But, for my own part, I am the most miserable man alive, and the sooner the Gordian knot of life is cut the better for me!”

In the meantime, a terrible scene was taking place at the Raleigh mansion. Mrs. Raleigh, recovered from the hysterics, was still able to enact the rôle of the injured mother, the insulted and outraged lady, and she spared no words to impress upon her hearers the full enormity of the crime from which she was suffering.

“A common servant-girl!” she panted, angrily, pacing madly up and down her handsome chamber, whither her husband and Rosamond had followed her. “A working-girl—daughter of one of my husband’s employees! A low-born creature like that to be the wife of my son—my handsome Richard—who might have his choice among the ladies of the land! Grafton, I can not endure it!” she shrieked, madly. “Drive that girl from the house—I command you! She shall not remain here! I hate her—hate her! I hate her pretty baby face and silly ways, her cat-like deceit, her snaky way of winding herself about everybody’s heart but mine! Ah, no! not mine—nor Rosamond’s! We are women, and we know a bad, designing woman—a base adventuress—when we see one. It takes a woman to know a woman’s real nature, I tell you, Grafton Raleigh.”

“On the principle that it takes a thief to catch a thief, I presume,” intervened that gentleman, dryly. “Now, Mrs. Raleigh, are you done? Have you finished your tirade? If so, then perhaps—possibly you may listen to me. For I have something to say to you and also to my daughter—a revelation to make. Richard and I have been hiding something—an important discovery—from you both, for our own private reasons. Mrs. Raleigh—Rosamond—listen both of you. How would you like—how would you both like—to be poor? Poor! Not simply deprived of extravagances—a few extra jewels, an unnecessary servant, a useless superfluity of some sort; but poor—plainly, horribly, uncompromisingly poor? How would you like to live on a back street in a six-room cottage, and be your own servants, and exist without jewels, walk instead of drive in your carriage with liveried footman, forego Newport, Saratoga, and all that? How would you like to give up Jack Lyndon, Rosamond? For, of course, without money that marriage is off. Answer me, both of you, how would you like to be poverty-stricken paupers?”

“So you have remarked before, madame!” he interrupted, coldly. “I repeat my question, how would you like to be poor? Now listen. The great house of Raleigh & Raleigh stands upon the verge of ruin, and although it may sound absurd and incredible to you, there are reasons—real, tangible reasons—why a marriage with this girl will obviate all this; will save us from ruin—utter ruin and black disgrace—a disgrace which will tempt you to end your lives to escape its obloquy; a disgrace which would turn Jack Lyndon from you, Rosamond, and would make our best friend pass us by. I can explain no further now; you must take my simple word for it. But if Richard Raleigh does not make that girl Lillian Leigh his wife, and soon, we will all be beggars, and I—I shall die in prison, the death of a felon!”

He paused to mop the cold perspiration from his clammy forehead with his handkerchief. He was as pale as death, and trembled visibly.

“Now, Helen Raleigh,” he continued, glancing into his wife’s white, startled face with fierce, eager eyes, “will you keep on with your senseless ravings, or will you make the best of the situation and consent to the marriage without asking me unpleasant and troublesome questions? will you relieve us from the scandal of a marriage without your consent? in short, will you save us from ruin, disgrace, and me from a felon’s death?”

The music surged in sweet, soft strains, the dancers danced, and the moments went by. And still the mistress[Pg 103] of all this splendor lay white and unconscious upon the low seat in the conservatory, where the banksia roses were heaped in great clusters, and the dreamy splashing of the little fountain not far away alone broke the silence. Out in the ball-room Senator Van Alstyne was dancing with Mrs. Vernon. Her face was flushed with triumph, and her eyes held a look of exultation in their black, velvety depths.

“I will be even with Lenore Van Alstyne yet!” she was muttering low under her breath. “I will pay her off for her cold, calm superiority over me—her airs and graces, her assumption of goodness! I hate her, the stuck-up, haughty creature. I have always suspected that there was something hidden—a secret in her life—which she would not like the world to know. I am sure of it now. I shall tell Rosamond all about it, and if between us we can not punish and humiliate my lady, then I imagine nobody can.”

And the black, velvety eyes shone like diamonds, and the pretty face was full of eager exultation at the thought—the alluring prospect of blackening and defiling a sister woman’s name, and dragging her down into the dust of shame and humiliation. Lenore was pure and true and noble, though the victim of strange circumstances. And this woman—who was no more to be compared with her than the bright blue, sunshiny summer day can compare with the black, cold, tempestuous winter’s night—this woman had power to drag her down from her pedestal of innocence, simply because Bessie Vernon was unprincipled, and had set her whole heart upon the ruination of Lenore, whom she hated with that hatred of her own sex which is a woman’s Cross of Honor—such women as Bessie Vernon. And as she floated down the long room on the arm of the senator, to the sweet waltz music, her thoughts were busy with a scheme of vengeance.

And the moments slipped by, and still Lenore did not return to consciousness. Mrs. Vernon had wandered away[Pg 104] to the furthest extremity of the drawing-room, and alone, for a wonder, was watching the conservatory with furtive, cat-like eyes; but still Lenore lay in that death-like swoon in the secluded corner among the banksia roses, and the guests did not dream the truth.

At length a tall form emerged from the depths of the fernery just beyond the main conservatory, separated by a screen of luxuriant flowering vines, and slowly approached the unconscious woman. It was Cyril Fayne; his face white and set, his eyes full of smoldering light which was not good to see. He looked like a man who is bent upon some desperate errand as he came swiftly forward and fell upon his knees at her side.

“She is dead—my love, my wife!” he panted, hoarsely. “Lenore! Lenore! Open your eyes, my darling, and tell me that you love me, and will go with me at once—this very night!”

Slowly the soft dark eyes opened and met his eager, impassioned gaze. She half arose, putting out her hands in a pleading, beseeching way.

“Don’t! Oh, Cyril! do not let them hear you!” she cried. “He would listen to no explanation; he would put a bullet into your heart without a moment’s hesitation. And if he knew all—if he knew—”

“He shall know—he must know soon!” he panted, softly. “I will only wait for this affair to be ended and the guests dispersed; then I will demand a private interview with Senator Van Alstyne. Lenore, my darling, I am going to take you away from this place—away from the awful position that you are filling—not your fault, my love! but it must end now—at once, before another sun shall set. Think of the horrors of your position—this sham existence must end at once! Let it be to-morrow night. Ah! I have a better plan. We need say nothing[Pg 105] to him until all is over with; we would only make a terrible scene; and once away from here, we will be with each other, never more to part! You shall learn all the dark and dreary past, Lenore—the truth of our long parting. I have written a full confession and explanation for you to read before you join your fate with mine. Take this and read it at your leisure,” he added, swiftly, drawing a letter from his pocket and laying it in her trembling hand.

“We must be silent as the grave,” he went on, hurriedly; “keep our own counsel, and all will yet be well. Lenore, you can not, must not, live on in this way a day longer, now that you know the truth. Go with me to-morrow night. I will meet you at any place you may designate, and we will take passage for Europe at once. Does that please you, Lenore?”

“Anywhere with you, Cyril,” she whispered. “Oh, to be with you always, after all these long years, will be like heaven.”

“Then will you go away with me to-morrow night?” he panted, eagerly. “I will defer my explanation until we are gone; then Van Alstyne shall receive a written statement, with all necessary proofs of the truth, and you will be out of his way, so that the horrors of his anger shall not fall upon your head. And he is so violent and brutal, it is best for you to be gone before he learns the truth, and that it is no sin. The sin would be in remaining, Lenore!” She bowed her head like a beautiful white lily—drooping and pale. “You will go with me?” he went on, eagerly; “there is no other resource; and—surely you are willing, Lenore?”

She started to her feet, pale and trembling with excitement, her hands clasped, her eyes shining like stars.

“Willing? Oh, Cyril! Ask a starving, freezing wretch[Pg 106] if he is willing to be taken to a warm, luxurious home, with every comfort; ask a dying consumptive if he would be glad to have his health and strength again; ask the bleeding, fainting heart if it would be happy with the one it loves—and you will have my answer. Yes, yes; a thousand times yes. As the old German song says:

And I have been cast out into utter darkness, and my life has been desolate and barren long enough. I am going to accept the cup of happiness held to my lips, and thank God for the love that has come back to me—Heaven be praised, not too late!”

“My love! my love!” he cried; “you are mine—mine by the laws of heaven and earth! Thank God for that. Now, Lenore, tell me, where shall I meet you to-morrow night? The ‘Caspian’ sails the next morning; she is anchored out at sea. We can go on board my friend Thornton’s yacht at any hour you name to-morrow night, and he will take us out to where the ‘Caspian’ lies. Once on board her, we are safe. Tell me what hour to meet you, Lenore.”

“We entertain again to-morrow night,” she said, slowly. “Van Alstyne would fill his house every night if it were feasible. To-morrow at eight we give a dinner to some foreign embassadors and half a dozen bewhiskered, beribboned officers—a score of guests. I can manage to slip away unobserved from the house at ten, perhaps, and will meet you in the grounds down by the ornamental lake. You can easily find the place; there is a marble basin full of gold-fish, and the water is white with pond-lilies. Be there at ten precisely, Cyril, and I will join you as soon as possible.”

A quick flush shot athwart the ivory whiteness of her face and a tender light stole into her luminous eyes.

“Prepared to go with you? Yes,” she made answer. “My life here must come to an end. Oh, Heaven! if it had only come to an end long ago, or, better still, had never begun. I hate and scorn and loathe myself, Cyril, and oh—”

“Stay!” she whispered, hoarsely, “I have something to tell you—a revelation to make, Cyril. Listen: I must tell it quickly, for my guests will miss me, and I must leave you now.”

“How you have suffered, oh, my love!” he cried; “but all that is ended now. Good-night, Lenore. I will meet you to-morrow night at the ornamental lake in the Van Alstyne grounds at ten precisely, and then—”

His voice died away into a murmur. He stole from the conservatory into the grounds through a side door which opened for him; and then, pale as a marble statue, Lenore went back to her guests.

As soon as she was gone there was a rustling among a group of tall, feathery palms which grew near, and directly afterward a slight, petite figure in auburn satin and lace and gleaming, glowing rubies crept slowly forth. It was Bessie Vernon. Her face was flushed with unholy triumph, her eyes were scintillating with hatred.

She had witnessed the entire interview; but they had spoken in such low tones that she had not caught the conversation, only the last few words which told of the appointed tryst.

Her white hands clinched themselves tightly together, and low under her breath she muttered, hoarsely:

“He kissed her! I saw him. And they are to meet to-morrow night at ten, in the grounds. My dear Mrs. Van Alstyne, immaculate Lenore! when that meeting takes place I shall be there also!”

And then she went back to the ball-room, and danced all the rest of the night, with as much carelessness and abandon as though she were not plotting the downfall of a sister woman.

The clocks throughout the Raleigh mansion were just striking twelve the day after that exciting scene within its stately walls when the door bell rang, and Rosamond heard the sound of Bessie Vernon’s voice in the hall. She had given orders to the footman to show Mrs. Vernon up to her own room; so a few moments later that lady, in all the glory of a stylish brown velvet street suit, a big plumed hat shading her arch, piquant face, entered Miss Raleigh’s presence and sunk wearily into a seat.

“Oh, dear, I am tired to death!” she cried, when the greetings were over; “the demands of society are fearful upon a weak, delicate woman like me! You know, Rosamond, how we leaders of society are overworked. Why, we are perfect martyrs. I have attended five balls this week, the opera and theater, a flower show and a matinée. To-night is the Van Alstyne dinner, and to-morrow night I have promised to hear ‘Il Trovatore’ with Vernon’s old uncle, the rich Californian. Awful bore, and I know the opera by heart; but Charlie Stuart will be there, and I imagine I shall be able to pull through the evening. You did not appear at the Van Alstyne’s reception, Rosamond? I forgot to ask you why last night when I called, on my way to the reception, you know. I thought then that I had something to tell you—but, dear me! I went straight[Pg 109] to the discovery of developments of a startling nature. I wish you had been there, Rosamond.”

Rosamond looked bored. She was out of temper this morning, that was plain to be seen.

“Mamma and I had a previous engagement,” she said, coldly, “and were compelled to decline. But tell me, Bessie, what it is that you have discovered? I am just dying to know. Something about Lenore—I think you intimated.”

“I shrink from telling you, Rosamond!” she said, in a stage whisper. “After all, Lenore is your own cousin, and it may have an influence upon your social standing.”

“What do you mean, Bessie Vernon?” Rosamond started to her feet, pale with anger. “Explain yourself!” she commanded imperiously.

“Dear, dear! High tragedy and all that sort of thing! Beats Janauschek completely! Now, Rosamond, just be calm, and sit down quietly and listen to me. What I said, I meant; but you will understand me better later on when I have told my story. First, let me ask you a question: Have you ever heard of a Mr. Fayne—Mr. Cyril Fayne?”

“Well, then, possibly you may be better informed than I, and perhaps be able to account for the strange—the remarkable intimacy between Mr. Cyril Fayne and Mrs. Lenore Van Alstyne.”

“Mrs. Lenore Van Alstyne!” repeated Bessie, laconically. “Rosamond, we are on the track at last of your cousin’s secret. We have long been convinced—you and I—that[Pg 110] she had a secret, and I have found it out. That secret is her love—her guilty love—for Cyril Fayne!”

A slow, cruel smile crept over Rosamond’s fair face; her eyes flashed with a look which was neither sorrow nor regret; one small, pearly hand clinched itself involuntarily.

“I was going on. I am prepared to tell the whole story—just what I know and saw and heard. I know that Lenore Van Alstyne wears Cyril Fayne’s portrait in a medallion—the chain riveted about her neck. I saw them alone together in the conservatory at Van Alstyne’s; she was in his arms, and he was kissing her for all he was worth! And lastly, I heard them lay a plot to elope to-night! There! What do you think of that?”

For a moment Rosamond Raleigh sat staring her visitor in the face, in blank horror too deep for expression.

“Bessie, this is—it must be—a practical joke of your own. And I think it very small in you, and decidedly bad form, knowing as you do how proud the Raleighs are.”

“It is no practical joke, I assure you, Rosamond Raleigh!” she retorted. “And if you doubt me I can easily prove the truth of my words. You will be at the Van Alstyne dinner to-night, I suppose. It is the dinner for the foreign embassadors. I would not miss it for the world.”

“Of course we will have to attend, since we were not at the reception. And what is your plan, Bessie?”

Mrs. Vernon bent her head close to Rosamond’s ear and began to speak in low, cautious tones. When her story was done she rose to her feet.

“And now I really must go. I’ve some shopping to do, and time is flying. What do you think of my plan,[Pg 111] Rosamond? Don’t you think it will be a grand exposé? Ah! I have waited and longed for this for many a long day. My time has come at last. There was never any love lost between Lenore Van Alstyne and myself, and I imagine that you know how to appreciate the situation also; for if I am not mistaken, you never loved her!”

“I hate her!” cried Rosamond, excitedly. “I have hated her always, and of late her cold, calm superiority has driven me nearly wild. I would give something to put down her pride and humble her as she deserves. All right, Bessie. We will be at the Van Alstynes’ to-night, and then the curtain will rise upon the overthrow—the everlasting disgrace and utter ruin of Lenore Van Alstyne.”

As the words left her lips she turned swiftly about. Something like a chill seemed creeping slowly over her, and a strange, subtle instinct warned her of another presence in the room. What was it?

She caught her breath with a gasp of horror, then shriek after shriek burst from her lips. For there before her—for bolts nor bars have no power over spirits—stood the apparition which had so persistently haunted her, and of which she had fondly persuaded herself she was rid forever—Noisette!

She held the amber satin panel in one shadowy hand; the other was uplifted with a warning gesture; upon the wan, white, shadowy face a look of angry menace. Slowly the pale lips opened and—oh, it was horrible to witness—the apparition spoke.

“Lenore!” it said, in a hollow voice. Then, after a moment’s pause, one more word broke the awful silence. That one word was: “Beware!”

Mrs. Vernon stood like one turned to stone; her big dark eyes, dilated with horror, fixed wildly upon the apparition.

No answer—no answer. Rosamond stood, wringing her hands in horror and affright, screaming like a lunatic. One more glance, and Bessie Vernon turned and fled, with Rosamond close at her heels—fled from the room and down the stairs, bursting into the library, where Grafton Raleigh sat deeply engrossed in the contents of a formidable-looking document before him. Bursting into the room, they sunk down upon a low couch, too overcome by terror to utter a word. “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” Grafton Raleigh glanced up with a start of surprise at the interruption—this unceremonious bursting in upon his privacy—and arose to his feet, his face dark with displeasure.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Vernon”—in a cold tone. “Why, what is the matter with my daughter? Rosamond, are you mad?”

“Mad?” with a hysterical outburst. “No, no! But I shall be mad indeed before long if that dreadful apparition continues to appear. Oh, papa, listen! You had the round room closed up, and no one can get in or out of it, yet I saw just now in my room, standing just where the communicating door used to be, the apparition—the something of which I have been telling you so long. And Bessie saw it also.”

“It is true, Mr. Raleigh, and no mistake about it!” corroborated Mrs. Vernon. “I saw it just as certainly[Pg 113] and distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life—just as plainly as I see you at this moment! And—worse than all else—it—”

“Yes, yes, papa!” interrupted Rosamond, trembling like a leaf and weeping copiously—“something dreadful occurred! Something which has never happened before! It—it—spoke!”

“Rosamond, now really this is going a little too far. Bessie, I had imagined you possessed a little common sense, if Rosamond is deficient. Do you mean to assert that you too saw an apparition in this house in broad daylight, and that it—the thing—spoke intelligibly?”

“Papa, it really did!” repeated Rosamond, wildly. “It spoke two words—one was ‘Beware!’ the other was ‘Lenore!’ We were speaking of Lenore at the time the apparition appeared—Bessie and I.”

“Lenore? You must have misunderstood, daughter. I—I—can’t believe it.”

“Papa”—desperately—“it is the truth! And we were not mistaken; we could not be. I suppose it is gone now, and if you were to go up to my room you would not find it. But I swear to you there is no mistake or exaggeration in our story; it is all just as we have told you. I wish you could see for yourself; and then, I suppose, you would believe.”

“I will take possession of your room,” he said, decidedly, “and will remain there for a time. Each day hereafter I will make it my business to spend a portion of the day there to watch, and perhaps I shall be able to get at the root of the mystery.”

“But it only appears to me!” sobbed Rosamond, wringing her hands again and again. “It seems to have an especial spite against me—though if any one is with me in the room they always see it too. Papa, papa! I can not stay in this house. Let me go away for a time at least—let[Pg 114] me go home with Bessie for a few days. I will die if I am forced to remain here, liable to meet that horrible thing and—and—hear it speak!”

“Yes, come home with me, Rosie!” intervened Mrs. Vernon, her face lighting up at once. “We will have a pleasant time; and I am expecting some guests from New York, and I really need an attraction like you, Rosie. And besides”—in a low tone—“old Arbuthnot, the millionaire, is to be with us for a few days. Fancy the opportunity for you, Rosamond, to be shut up in the same house with him for perhaps a whole week! They do say that he is as rich as Crœsus! Do come home with me, dear!”

So it was finally arranged, and then Rosamond went to inform her mother and order a trunk packed; for even one week’s stay necessitated much baggage. Upstairs to her mother’s room she made her way, passing her own door with a perceptible shudder. She found Mrs. Raleigh lounging before the fire in a low chair, her hands folded listlessly in her lap. In a few moments the strange story was told, and Rosamond announced her intended departure. Mrs. Raleigh, gazing upon her daughter’s pale, worn face and great frightened eyes with dark circles beneath, and thinking of her desperate resort to chloral or some such drug, was only too glad to consent. But she sighed sadly.

“I see but little for which to live; small hope in life!” she cried, in a shrill voice; “my son, my boy, my idol to be sacrificed to a foolish whim of your father’s. Rosamond, last night when your father told us that horrible story—of prospective poverty and disgrace—I thought then that all life was ended for me. But now you are doomed. I am convinced that your intellect is giving way. You are a perfect wreck of what you were a few weeks ago. You are beginning to look old and faded. Yes, go to Bessie Vernon’s if you like; it would kill you to remain here,[Pg 115] haunted as you are. I have never believed in such things before in my life. I have always looked upon such tales as foolish superstitions, or falsehoods got up for the purpose of frightening timid people, and altogether unworthy a sensible person’s notice. But I declare, Rosamond, it is exceedingly strange and incomprehensible, to say the least. I always told you to be more careful in your treatment of Noisette. You were unwarrantably harsh and cruel, and you are being punished for it now. But what puzzles me most is that you and Bess should have heard the apparition speak the name of Lenore. What does it, can it, mean?”

“Mamma, do you remember when she—Noisette—lay dead, and I—I—saw the resemblance between her and Lenore Van Alstyne? Mamma, I tell you I have heard something to-day which proves to me that she is not the immaculate angel that people think her. I will tell you later on all about it. But just now I am only anxious to get away. I shall be insane if I stay here much longer and suffer from this strange, this awful visitation. Where is Lillian? I want a trunk packed at once.”

“Lillian, indeed!” she panted, wrathfully. “I hope that you do not for a moment believe that you can retain my Lady Leigh as a waiting-maid? Why, your fastidious brother is going to commit matrimonial suicide in a few weeks, I believe! Rosamond, we are a ruined family!”

Rosamond’s eyes flashed with ominous fire. “Has she left the house?” she demanded, fiercely.

“She is shut up in her own room. Your father informed her that the whole house is at her disposal, and that she can do as she pleases. It pleased her majesty to lock herself up in her own room, and stay there. I wish”—savagely—“that she would never come out alive!”

“Amen!” responded Miss Raleigh, fervently. “Well,[Pg 116] I suppose I can manage with the packing somehow; but I can not go into that room alone, mamma!”

At this obvious hint Mrs. Raleigh arose and accompanied her daughter to her luxurious sleeping-room. She was quite pale, and trembled with excitement. But they found the room unoccupied by human or ghostly visitant, and just as Rosamond had left it, save for one particular: Upon a white fur rug which lay near the spot where the apparition had been standing, there was a round red spot of something which looked like fresh blood. Trembling visibly, Mrs. Raleigh stooped to examine it; she drew back with a frightened cry. There was nothing there.

“Rosamond!” in a husky whisper, “this house is haunted. I will try to induce your father to put it into the market at once, for I declare I do not like to live in it. But come now, daughter, do not look so terrified. I will ring for my maid and have your trunk prepared. You will go home with Bessie, and amid her gay surroundings you will forget this unpleasant, uncomfortable affair.”

“And I will write a line to Jack at once,” she said, “and tell him of my departure, so that he will call on me at Bessie’s.”

“If I were you I would give up that nonsense, Rosie,” she ventured, in a low, earnest tone. “I heard yesterday that old Arbuthnot is going to visit the Vernons. You have heard of him, Rosamond, the railroad king? What a triumph it would be to become Mrs. Arbuthnot!”

“And give up Jack? Never, mamma! I have never cared for any man before in my whole life!”

“Both my children gone mad over pretty faces!” she ejaculated. “But I know Richard well enough to believe[Pg 117] that he has some ulterior object in this affair which will be known to us later on. If that surmise be true—and I can not doubt it after what your father said last night—why, we can understand Richard’s seemingly unpardonable conduct. But you, good gracious, Rosamond, you have no sensible excuse for your folly, none in the world.”

Rosamond’s thin lips were compressed closely, and a dangerous gleam shone in her eyes.

“We will not discuss it now, mamma,” she made answer. “Wait until I come home again, though I do not know that the idea of returning to this house is a very lively one—at least, unless this supernatural visitation should cease. And now ring for Felice, and let me get ready. Bessie will be tired waiting.”

But down in the library where she had tarried, Bessie was occupying herself very much to her own satisfaction. Some one had summoned Mr. Raleigh from the room, and only waiting to place the document which had so engrossed him in a drawer, he arose and left the library.

As soon as he was gone, Mrs. Vernon crept swiftly over to the escritoire, and stealthily opening the drawer, drew forth the great yellow parchment with glaring red seals, and opened it hastily. The first words which met her eyes were these:

Footsteps in the hall without, the turning of the door-knob. Bessie dropped the document back into the drawer, and closing it, turned to confront Richard Raleigh. He looked pale and handsome; but there was a triumphant smile upon his lips, a lurking devil in his dusky eyes. As they fell upon the lady he started.

And the hand which took Bessie’s in its grasp closed down tightly upon her tiny fingers. “Mother has just informed[Pg 118] me that Rosamond is to go to you for a few days,” he continued. “Now, my dear Mrs. Vernon, surely you will not shut a poor fellow out of your paradise? You will let me come sometimes?”

“As many times as you please,” she returned. “I shall have some pretty ladies among my guests, and an escort is always welcome.”

“But,” she added, softly, “what is this rumor—oh, a little bird told me—about your own marriage?”

“I have been caught in Cupid’s net!” he laughed, “and may as well cry out mea culpa to that charge. Seriously, Bessie—you used to let me call you Bessie—I am intending to marry soon Miss Leigh. She is a poor girl, but lovely. Coming, father!” he added, as his father’s voice called his name.

Five minutes later Bessie Vernon was alone in the library once more, an odd smile upon her painted lips, her eyes shining like stars.

“Ah, ha! I see the game at last!” she muttered to herself. “How stupid not to have seen it before.”

Richard Raleigh left the library at sound of his father’s voice calling his name, and hastened to an adjacent room where that gentleman awaited him. Grafton Raleigh’s face was pale and troubled.

“Get rid of that woman, Rick,” he said in a low, cautious tone; “her eyes are everywhere at once. She suspects something, and I believe she never took her eyes off the—the document—after she had first observed it.”[Pg 119] Richard started nervously. His father went on: “If she once gets her curiosity aroused, you might as well attempt to stay a tornado in its course as to check or restrain her. Get her out of the library, if you can; go into the conservatory and talk nonsense—Heaven knows she is always ready enough to listen! and I will go back to the library and remove the—the paper. You know Rosamond well enough to compute the length of time that she will probably keep Mrs. Vernon waiting—long enough to ruin us, Rick, if she sees anything more to arouse her curiosity. And that paper is so extremely conspicuous; and she and Rosamond burst in upon me so unexpectedly that I had no time to conceal it. I shall be more careful to lock the door another time.”

Pale and looking very uncomfortable, Richard retraced his steps to the library. As he entered the room Bessie had just arisen to her feet, about to return to her investigations in the escritoire. At sound of the opening door she started guiltily.

“Ah!” she cried, as her eyes fell upon Richard, “you are back again, and I am glad! I am tired waiting for Rosamond. She is an unconscionably long time getting ready!” pouting bewitchingly as she stood with her long black eyelashes drooping over her great, velvety eyes—downcast, as though unable to bear the look of plainly expressed admiration from Richard Raleigh’s dusky orbs riveted upon her.

“Come into the conservatory, Bessie,” he pleaded. “I want to talk to you.”

She followed him as obediently as a child, and they entered the conservatory together. Moving down the long aisle between rows of bloom and verdure, she lifted her eyes to his face, with a question in their innocent depths. No one knew better than Bessie Vernon how to enact the rôle of innocence and childishness.

“How long has this little affair been going on, Richard,”[Pg 120] she asked, with assumed timidity, “this—this love affair with Miss Leigh? By the way, have I ever met her? The name sounds strangely familiar. Wasn’t there a man by the name of Leigh killed a short time ago?”

He fell backward with a suppressed cry, which ended in an impatient exclamation as his foot came in contact with a rustic jardinière which fell to the floor with a crash, depositing a great glazed jar filled with lovely blue Mexican torrinias upon the floor at his feet.

Half angrily he stooped to rescue the plants. Then, summoning the gardener, he left him to repair the damage, and moved calmly away at Mrs. Vernon’s side, with as much nonchalance as though a fifty-dollar jardinière and a ruined collection of rare plants worth their weight in gold to the connoisseur were matters of the greatest indifference to him.

“Now, Bessie,” in a low tone, as he led her away to a retired nook amid great trailing rose-vines, “don’t annoy me with your chaff about marrying a poor girl. If I could have had my own way, I would have met another, a sweeter fate. If I could have won the beautiful woman whom I have admired above all others,” with a tender gaze into her downcast, blushing face, a look which spoke volumes, “then I would have had a chance at happiness. But as it is,” with a deep sigh, “I must—I have—resigned all hope; for she, alas! is the wife of another man!”

“Rick!” in a tone of remonstrance, but at the same time one little hand stole into his with a faint, wavering touch, “you must not speak in that way. It is wrong, awfully wrong; and what would Vernon say?”

“He would say that he has had the best of it in the race for the prize. Bessie, why did you not give me a chance—half a chance—to win you?”

“Don’t ask such foolish questions,” she returned.[Pg 121] “Run away now like a good boy, and see if Rosamond is ever coming.”

He glanced furtively about. Barnes, the gardener, had removed the débris, and quietly retired. They were alone in that retired nook in the conservatory. Richard lifted Mrs. Vernon’s hand to his lips.

“No, I will not go and leave you!” he cried, eagerly. “I have sought an interview with you for a long time, Bessie, and sought in vain. This is my chance now, and I am going to avail myself of it. Bessie! Bessie! don’t turn away from me so coldly, sweetheart—”

He sunk into a seat at her side, for she had seated herself upon a carved divan amid the fragrant Maréchal Niel roses, whose perfume loaded the air. He took her hand in his and drew the dusky head down upon his shoulder. She started up with a little cry.

“Don’t! Oh, Rick, it is shameful in you! I—I have always cared, of course. I might indeed have more than liked you in time if—if—well, fate hadn’t decreed that I should marry Arnold Vernon! It is too late now to talk about it—too late!”

The little sinner had never thought of such a thing as marrying Richard Raleigh, or caring for him either, for that matter, though she had known him all her life. But the situation was strong, and the effect too much of a temptation to be resisted. But Bessie Vernon was destined to pay dearly for that moment of sentimental folly.

“You are Arnold Vernon’s wedded wife, and I—I am going to marry Lillian Leigh!” he said, slowly.

“Why should you?” she asked, softly; “you need not marry any one, Richard, if you—do—not love her! And I do not see what you gain by this marriage. She is a poor girl!” with a swift, keen glance into his startled[Pg 122] face, “and I see no object in marrying her at all if you do not—if—you care a little for some one—else!”

“You are a dear little woman, Bessie,” he said, softly, his dark eyes upon her face with bold admiration; “but you do not understand a man’s heart. We are often compelled to submit to much that is unpalatable, and forego many joys that would make us happy if attainable.

Owen Meredith tells us; and Owen speaks from extended experience. We have, all of us, to bear our burdens and keep silent, and try to make as much out of this life as we can. And you would not doom me to lasting loneliness, Bessie?”

“Yes, confound her! So my blissful moment is over! Bessie, I have something to say to you, and I must communicate with you in some way. May I write to you? Will you answer the letter? It will make me very happy to confide my griefs to you, if you will permit me to write.”

Silence! Light footsteps drawing nearer and nearer, and then a shrill voice, calling loudly:

“Answer me, Bessie. Will you reply to my letter? Don’t refuse me. I swear you will never regret it. I want your advice; and I must speak my mind for once, for, oh! I have suffered! May I write? Will you reply?”

The door of the conservatory opened, and Rosamond’s eyes roved through the flower-scented place.

“Answer me!” reiterated Richard, in a low tone.[Pg 123] “Yes or no? Rosie’s coming in—be quick! Which is it to be?”

A gleam of devilish triumph flashed into his dusky eyes and lighted up his face. He caught her hand in his and pressed his lips upon it, and then Bessie Vernon arose.

She was quite pale, and looked uneasy. Already conscience was pricking her with its sharp sting, and reminding her that she had done wrong. Yet it was only a brief reminder, for Bessie Vernon was not troubled with an undue amount of conscience.

And then they joined Rosamond at the door of the conservatory, and a little later the two ladies drove away to the elegant home of the Vernons. And then Richard went back to his father.

Grafton Raleigh was waiting for his son in the library, upon his pale face a look of perturbation.

“Our fears are well founded,” he began, as soon as his son had entered the room; “that meddling woman has certainly been looking at that document! Why? Because this is not the way in which I placed it in the drawer. I remember perfectly, and indeed I was cautious enough to place it in a certain position, that I might know if it should be displaced. If only that fellow Buckley had not called just then! I knew that his business with me was urgent, or I would have declined seeing him. But he saved me a hundred dollars by the call, for he gave me a pointer which will prevent the loss of at least that much. Yet it would have been better to have lost fifty times one hundred than to let Bessie Vernon get hold of our secret. The sly little cat! She is always where she isn’t wanted, and it seems as if she were destined to find out all our family affairs. Rick, I’m afraid of that woman.”

Richard spoke quietly, but there was a meaning tone in the low, soft, sneering voice.

“Just leave all that to me, father, and I agree to close Bessie Vernon’s lips effectually—so effectually that no matter what happens she will not dare to speak. Don’t ask me how or why. I have not wasted a moment of time this morning. I know her nature; her insatiable love of conquest, and her vanity which is never satisfied. I have made hay while the sun shines; I have won her sympathy through her overweening vanity, and I am not afraid of Bessie Vernon or all that she may know. I am no more afraid of any developments which she may make than I am afraid of the wind. What troubles me in regard to this deuced unpleasant business is, whether or no Lillian has begun to suspect.”

“And so I say, father, that the sooner the marriage is over, and she becomes my property, the better for our cause. Shall I endeavor to bring about the marriage in a few days?”

“Days?” Grafton Raleigh started. “If you can—all right, of course,” he returned, thoughtfully; “the sooner the better. Can not you touch Lillian’s pride and arouse her jealousy, so that she will be goaded into consent to an immediate marriage?”

“I will send for her to come down to the drawing-room,” he said. “She shall appoint our wedding-day at once, and the sooner the better. I know how to manage her; never fear, father! And—ahem!—I fancy I can manage Bessie Vernon also.”

He rang the bell, and when a servant appeared he sent him to request Miss Leigh to come down to the drawing-room.

“Come up to your room, Rosamond. See! I have given you one across the hall from mine. Our guests will arrive shortly, and Arnold is down in the drawing-room, waiting with as much patience as a man usually bestows upon his wife. Make haste, dear, and get off your wraps, while I run down and pacify him.”

And Bessie Vernon, just arrived at the handsome home which claimed her as its mistress, flitted from the room.

Rosamond laid aside her hat and wrap, and seated herself before the cheerful fire in the pretty blue-and-gold chamber—a triumph of modern art and æsthetic taste.

“Jack will be surprised,” she said to herself, as she leaned her head against the puffy blue satin chair-back and closed her eyes languidly. “But he will call to-night to join our party bound for the Van Alstyne dinner. And after that—” She arose slowly to her feet, and moved over to the window, her face full of triumph, and her eyes shining with malice—the malice of a woman who hates another with all her heart, and sees a way open to vent her cruel spite upon her. “Ah! Lenore Van Alstyne,” she hissed, bleakly, “you have had your day—my turn is coming now. You have queened it over me in the past, it is my hour of triumph now. I hate her—the cold, proud, grand lady, who makes us all feel our inferiority; but I shall be even with her yet. I see the way open before me.”

She hated Lenore with all the hatred of which her narrow mind was capable. Her nature was cruel and vindictive, and she would leave no stone unturned to humiliate the woman so much her superior. A rap at the door of her room made her turn swiftly.

“Let me in, Rosamond!” called Mrs. Vernon’s voice through the key-hole. “I want to tell you something.”

A little later Rosamond and her hostess were sitting before the fire, while Bessie chattered volubly away.

“He is coming here to-night, after the Van Alstyne dinner—Mr. Arbuthnot, I mean, Rosamond—and, dear me, you incorrigible girl! you pretend not to understand; but I mean—here it is in plain English—I mean that you shall marry him!”

“I mean that you shall become Mrs. Arbuthnot before many months are past,” repeated Mrs. Vernon, impressively. “Your coming here is just providential. I had been wanting you here for Mr. Arbuthnot’s visit, and fate has decreed that you should come.”

“Oh, yes! I suppose it is quite in order for you to respectfully decline, etc., but all the same I will wager that you will marry Mr. Arbuthnot. True, he is old, but money, like charity, covers a multitude of sins and short-comings. And, besides, you will stand a chance of being a rich widow some day—a real queen—living in royal state. In which case you will not forget your old friend Bess. Eh, Rosamond?”

“You are speaking of impossibilities,” she returned, coldly. “I may as well tell you now as later. My affections are already engaged. I love one of the noblest men in the world,” she added, with a tragical air.

Mrs. Vernon arose to her feet, and with both white jeweled hands uplifted in dumb surprise, turned slowly around upon one foot, like a revolving automaton, and gazed full into Rosamond’s anxious face. Then she burst into a peal of silvery laughter.

“Rosamond, you are the funniest girl—just too awfully funny for anything. Your affections! Who in the world[Pg 127] said anything about affections? I was speaking of marriage. You love the noblest man, and so on. Dear, dear! you’ll be the death of me, Rosamond! And, come what may, I still adhere to my opinion that you will win old Arbuthnot, the railroad king. He is already interested in you. He saw you with me one day, when we were driving in the park, and he asked me afterward who you were. Said that he had never seen a more queenly lady, and that there was something about you which reminded him of the late Mrs. Arbuthnot.”

“Don’t, Bessie!” she cried, angrily. “I will tell you plainly that I—I care more for Mr. Lyndon than for any man in the universe.”

“The end of the world is at hand,” she exclaimed, laughingly. “Now, Rosamond, you know as well as I that you will never marry that newspaper scribbler—never! No, not though you go to your grave unwedded, which I am certain is an act of which you will never be guilty. Why, it is perfectly laughable. The idea of you, only daughter of Grafton Raleigh, millionaire, to think seriously for one moment of a poor newspaper scribbler! Of course I understand; it is merely a jest of yours, Rosie. And now I am going to ring for refreshments. We will have a cozy lunch together, after which it will be time to dress for the affair at Van Alstyne’s.”

The great dining-hall of the Van Alstyne mansion was brilliantly illuminated. The sheen of light fell athwart the long table with its glittering array of gold and silver, and brought out into strong relief the gorgeous uniforms of the foreign officers and the rich toilets of the ladies.

At the head of the table sat Lenore, in a robe of rich black lace, through which her snowy arms and shoulders[Pg 128] gleamed like polished marble. Inky black was the entire costume, lighted up by the shimmering topaz ornaments that she wore—yellow and uncanny. Her face was as pale as death, save for a round red spot which looked like the hectic flush of fever. Her eyes were calm and proud as they swept the glittering assemblage, her red lips slightly curling as though with utter scorn. Rosamond and Mrs. Vernon watched her with furtive eyes. Rosamond in pale-blue silk and white lace, Bessie in a bewildering combination of scarlet and gold. Mr. Arbuthnot had been duly presented to Rosamond, who saw before her a red-faced, rather pompous-looking old man who seemed to feel the dignity of his own position; and also he seemed to be really attracted by Miss Raleigh’s charms. At last the banquet was at an end, and the guests filed back to the drawing-room. The clocks all over the great house struck the hour of ten.

“Lenore! Oh, I feared that something was wrong, that all had been discovered and our flight prevented. For it is better for you that we go away quietly. But, Heaven be praised, you have come at last! My darling, I have waited not so very long when the time is computed by moments, but counted by the suffering of suspense which I have endured, it has been an eternity. Lenore, are you ready to go at once? Thornton’s yacht is down in the harbor and the boat is waiting to take us thither. You leave no regrets behind, Lenore?”

“Regrets? Good heavens! This is the real beginning of my life! Cyril, I have taken nothing which that man ever gave me. I have left my jewels, my wardrobe—all; this plain merino dress was purchased with money of my own, which I earned before I ever saw Van Van Alstyne. Nothing of his goes with me. Come, I am ready. The[Pg 129] air of this place—his possessions—stifle me. You have written the letter, Cyril?”

“I have written the letter. Senator Van Alstyne will find it in his room whenever he sees fit to enter it. And then he will learn the whole truth, and he will know that I am only claiming my own—that there is no sin—no crime in the step which we are taking. Lenore, love of my life, let us go!”

In the shrubbery close beside them three dark forms were crouching, watching the scene in perfect silence—Bessie Vernon, Rosamond Raleigh, and Senator Van Alstyne.

How still it was! Nothing to break the strange, uncanny silence of the scene and the hour only the wind moaning feebly in the tree-tops. The moon came forth from behind a mass of fleecy white clouds, and gazed down upon the group crouching in ambush—the three who had hunted this woman down to gloat over her ruin.

Cyril Fayne’s arms were about Lenore; her head rested upon his breast. One brief pause of blissful silence, then they flitted away through the shrubbery, in the pale radiance of the moonlight, straight to a side gate which led from the grounds.

Not a word was spoken; not a sound betrayed the excitement which quivered through the waiting group. Bessie Vernon flashed about at last and clutched Rosamond’s arm in a nervous grip.

“Look at Van Alstyne!” she whispered. “He looks like a galvanized corpse. Van Alstyne!” she called, softly, “are you dumb or dead? Don’t you see that they are going—gone? Why don’t you make your way around to the front and intercept them? No doubt there is a[Pg 130] carriage in waiting to take them away, and I happen to know that Harvey Thornton’s yacht, ‘White Wings,’ is in the bay. I suppose he has an object in anchoring there. Van Alstyne! in the name of Heaven, why don’t you do something? They will be gone; and if nothing is done it will be too late to spoil their game and put an end to their flight.”

And it never once occurred to this volatile butterfly that this man had planned deeper, more terrible revenge than the mere circumvention of the plan of escape together could ever have visited upon the two.

Slowly Van Van Alstyne turned, and his eyes met the gaze of the woman who had plotted so well and successfully. Bessie shivered.

“Don’t look at me like that!” she cried. “Go! You have your revolver; I saw it in your hand a moment ago. Why not use it? Not to—to kill—of course not; that would be so dreadfully low and common—but it would frighten them and make a scene. Then she will be disgraced forever.”

He turned slowly and faced her once more. He lifted his right hand toward heaven—upon his face a look that was bad to see. He had gnawed his under lip until the blood was beginning to trickle down upon his stubbly beard.

“Curse her! Curse them both!” he hissed, bleakly. “My curse follow them wherever they go! I curse them living—I curse them dead! No, I shall not follow them, Bessie Vernon; I shall remain where I am and let them take their departure undisturbed. Their punishment will be greater than my disgrace. Let us return to the house. My plan of vengeance will soon be revealed to you. I think it will satisfy even you.”

The dénouement was so unexpected, this turn in affairs something of which Bessie had not even dreamed, and for[Pg 131] which she was totally unprepared, she could only stand and stare blankly into Van Alstyne’s pale, resolute face.

“I do not understand you,” she faltered. “How can you punish her if you allow her to go on and elope with the man of her choice? You might prevent the elopement, and then you could have held the threat of public exposure and disgrace over her head in future—for the rest of her natural life. My word for it, she would rather be dead than in your power in that way. She would have been your slave henceforth; for in case of any insubordination, a gentle reminder of her secret—in your power—would bring my lady to her senses. Van Van Alstyne, I don’t understand you. If Arnold were in your place now, how he would rant and rave! He would be like a madman!”

“But I am not Arnold Vernon, and if I were, I am afraid I should do as I am doing now!” he returned, still with that same ominous quiet in tone and manner. “You will understand me later,” he added, with a grim smile. “Believe me, Mrs. Vernon, I am quite competent to manage this affair for myself. I advise you and Miss Raleigh to return to the house now; I will follow directly. Ah, I see young Stuart coming; he will escort you.”

A tall, fair-haired young fellow, with great gray eyes and an air of nonchalance, made his way through the shrubbery and halted.

“Hope I don’t intrude; eh, Mrs. Vernon? Regular Paul Pry, am I not? Do let me take you back to the house,” adding in a low tone, as Bessie promptly laid her hand upon his arm: “We will go around by the longest way.”

Rosamond was taken in charge by a bewhiskered foreign officer, and they all moved away together, leaving the senator alone. His face was as white as the face of a dead man; his hands were clinched fiercely together; he was trembling in every limb.

“Deserted!” he said, aloud, the word cutting in upon the silence like a knife; “deserted, abandoned, defied, made a mock of; I, senator and millionaire, one of the richest men in the city, one whose word is law, and who controls millions! Deserted by a pale-faced, trembling woman because she does not, and never did, love me, but loves another man! Ah—h!”

He gnashed his teeth in impotent rage. His pride was hurt, his self-love wounded, his vanity immolated, and he stood like a skeleton stripped of its flesh, alone in a howling wilderness, with only the vultures of social scorn to prey upon him. Otherwise he was alone.

“Alone!” he muttered, harshly, after a time. “Well, I am no more alone now than when she was with me. For we have always been apart. How I hate her for the contumely, the shame, the humiliation that she has brought upon my name! But I shall have revenge. If she were here now, if she had returned to me a moment ago, or should even yet come back, I would drag her into the house which she has disgraced, into the presence of my guests, and tell the shameful story before them all. I would have no pity, no mercy, nothing but revenge. That letter!” he panted, as he strode hastily back to the house. “I will find the letter which that villain said had been placed in my room for my perusal—yes, I will read it, and then I shall know if the course which I have marked out for myself be a wise one.”

He shut his lips resolutely together, and hastened around to a side entrance to the brilliantly lighted mansion.

Once within the house, he hurried upstairs to his own room, and closed its door behind him.

Upon the elegant dressing-table, with full-length mirror and with all its costly toilet accessories, the gleam of a white envelope attracted his attention. He snatched it up and tore it open with all the haste and passion of a madman.

Several sheets of paper met his view, all covered with writing. He recognized the chirography which he had seen upon the envelope addressed to Lenore, and an imprecation passed his lips. Then, still clutching the letter in one trembling hand, he sunk into the nearest seat and began to read.

Down-stairs, Rosamond Raleigh and Mrs. Vernon had taken upon themselves the task of entertaining the guests—assuming control of the festivities.

Mrs. Van Alstyne had been taken suddenly ill, and had gone to her room. She would be down directly. Senator Van Alstyne had been summoned away for a short time upon imperative business.

The evening wore away, and the guests seemed to have accepted the strange absence of both host and hostess with unprecedented good nature.

Bessie Vernon was in her element, for Charlie Stuart never left her side. And Arnold Vernon, watching the pair from the corner where he sat conversing with some ladies, frowned severely and looked as black as a thunder-cloud; but all of no avail. He could no more prevent his wife’s mad flirtations than he could turn the waves of the ocean from their course. He could only sit and glower moodily upon the scene, and, as Bessie definitely declared, hate himself to death.

She flitted past him leaning upon Charlie’s arm, her piquant face uplifted to his, while saucy retort and witty repartee flashed from one to the other. And gradually the elements of a tragedy were evolved from the giddy foolishness—the overweening vanity of this pleasure-loving wife.

In the meantime Cyril Fayne was hastening on with Lenore toward where, in a secluded corner, a closed carriage stood in waiting. A little later they were safe inside,[Pg 134] and the carriage drove away like mad in the direction of the harbor, a half mile distant. Pale as marble and trembling like a leaf, Lenore crouched upon the seat at his side, one hand pressed over her heart throbbing madly, the other grasping his arm with a despairing clutch, as though she feared that he might be taken from her.

“Cyril,” she cried, fearfully, “what if he discovers our flight and follows us? Oh, he is fearful in his anger and brute violence. It makes my heart quail to even think of him and the day that he struck me—”

She stopped short, the words dying upon her lips, as Cyril Fayne caught her in his arms, muttering a mad imprecation.

“Struck you? Oh, Lenore, Lenore, you never told me that. Struck you? How dared he, the villain, the base, vile wretch! Ah, Senator Van Alstyne, ours will be a terrible reckoning when the day comes in which we shall stand face to face. Hear me, Lenore: If the day ever comes when I shall stand in that man’s presence, I shall shoot him down as I would shoot a mad dog!”

“I shall kill him!” he repeated, grimly. “The same world can not hold Van Van Alstyne and me. For your sake I submit now and will do no violence, but Heaven help him if we chance to meet. It drives me mad to think of it. To dare raise his cowardly hand against a woman, and that woman—you—my own wife!”

He kissed the sweet red lips again and again as the carriage rolled onward. It came to a halt at last and Cyril hastily alighted. Lenore peered cautiously forth into the night. The moon had gone down and all was in darkness—a heavy gloom which hung over the earth like a pall. But a short distance away she caught the gleam of waves rising and falling with a low musical murmur, while off upon the water, a faint light twinkled like a star. The light is Harvey Thornton’s yacht, “White Wings.”[Pg 135] Cyril lifted Lenore to the ground. She clung to him with a frightened gesture.

“I see no one—nothing,” he made answer. “And now, my darling, we must make haste to the boat, and in a short time we will be safe upon the ‘White Wings.’”

One long, eager, searching glance up and down the beach, and down the long, winding country road by which they had come, then Lenore slipped her hand through his arm, and he led her away to where a tiny skiff rocked idly to and fro at the end of its long chain. A little delay and they were safe within the boat, flying over the water like a bird, in the direction of the anchored yacht.

“Love,” he bent his head and looked into her eyes, “it is you and I will move upon life’s tempestuous sea. Do you regret the past? Are you glad that I came back to you?”

One swift glance into his handsome dark face, but it told plainer far than words her heart’s content. He bent with fresh energy to the oars, and so at last the yacht was reached and they were safe on board. Half an hour later the yacht was pushing on, making rapid headway far out at sea.

Van Van Alstyne read the letter that Cyril Fayne had written—read it in ominous silence—his lips sternly compressed, his face ghastly white, his eyes blood-shot and fierce with rage. It was finished at last. He crushed the letter up into a ball, and tossed it into a drawer in his escritoire, locking it securely. For a few moments he stood as still as death, an awful look upon his white, drawn face. Then he wheeled about sullenly and entered his dressing-room. Having bathed his face and restored[Pg 136] his disordered attire, he was quite himself once more. Forcing a smile to his bloodless lips, he went down to the drawing-room from which he had so long absented himself. He advanced into the center of the room and the sight of him somehow checked the merry badinage of the gay crowd, and laughter died a speedy death. Pale and stern he faced them. Ah! he was going to taste the sweets of revenge now.

“My friends,” he began in a clear, distinct voice, “I must apologize for my unwarrantable neglect of my guests to-night. I have a revelation to make. Mrs. Lenore Van Alstyne has left her home forever. She has gone away in the night and darkness. She has disgraced herself and me, and heaped humiliation upon the name of Van Alstyne. She has fled with her lover, Cyril Fayne.”

When Van Van Alstyne spoke those words—those cruel, awful words—he was speaking falsely, and he knew it. For the letter which he had found in his room—the letter which Cyril Fayne had written—had told the whole truth. And Van Alstyne had set his teeth hard together over a fearful imprecation, while he vowed an awful vengeance upon the woman who had left him forever.

“I will not kill her,” he muttered, hoarsely. “Oh, no! she would be out of her misery then. And I will not pursue them and punish them; for they would publish their story far and near, and would win all sympathy; and I would be looked upon as an old tyrant from whose clutches Lenore had escaped to a brighter, happier life. If the world knew the truth—knew the contents of this letter—she would have all sympathy and her course would be universally approved. And they have played directly into my hands by not coming out openly and declaring the truth.[Pg 137] But Cyril Fayne—curse him!—would spare her every pang, every sorrow. He has taken her away to a foreign land, but they will return some day; and when that time comes, they will return to find themselves ostracized by all respectable people, condemned by public opinion, shunned as moral lepers. That is my revenge! Who shall say that it is not sweet?”

And then he had walked quietly down-stairs to the drawing-room, and repeated to the assembled guests the story of Lenore Van Alstyne’s downfall. He attempted no palliation, asked no leniency for the fallen woman; but coarsely, brutally told the tale which was destined to blight a woman’s whole life.

After that there was little desire for merry-making. Not that they grieved so much over Lenore; she was not a general favorite. She was too cold and quiet, too honest and sincere to be appreciated or widely liked. Not being a hypocrite, she would not sully her white soul with deceit, and pretend to a friendship which she did not feel. She

And now she must suffer for her honesty and sincerity. In fashionable society this is inevitable.

One by one the guests took their departure. A few of the older gentlemen seemed inclined to tarry; perhaps for the purpose of offering sympathy and consolation. But Van Alstyne coolly dismissed them all with a stiff “Thanks for your sympathy, old friend; I do not require it. I have seen the coming ruin for some time, and I have shielded her and covered up her sins and short-comings because she was my wife. But now that that which was hidden has become clear, I have no more to say. I prefer to be alone. Good-night, gentlemen.”

Once left alone in his deserted house, Van Van Alstyne went quietly upstairs, where he lighted a bronze hand-lamp.[Pg 138] Then, lamp in hand, he turned in the direction of the suite of rooms which had been occupied by his wife, separate and distinct from his own. He paused upon a white fur rug before the great carved Gothic door, and slowly turned the silver knob. There were three rooms in the suite—sleeping-room, dressing- and bath-room—all connected, and only separated from each other by crimson velvet portières. The sleeping-room was all in crimson, with dashes of old gold, with exquisite lace hangings, and carved rosewood furniture. The dainty satin-covered bed was smooth and untouched. The black lace robe which she had worn that night was flung across the foot, and heaped upon the marble toilet-table were the topaz ornaments, gleaming and glittering like weird, uncanny eyes. Van Alstyne opened a drawer in the toilet-table. There were her jewel cases; every jewel reposed upon the white satin bed; not one had been removed. A second drawer was filled to the brim with rare and costly laces—point, Mechlin, duchess, Valenciennes—of the most costly pattern and dainty workmanship.

The great carved wardrobes were overflowing with rich and costly garments. Silks, satins, velvets, furs. Her Russian sables had been the envy of half the city that winter.

Van Alstyne paused to place the bronze lamp upon the toilet-table, while he stood glaring about him with ferocious eyes. He looked like a tiger—blood-thirsty, cruel—as he stood there, his small, snaky eyes growing red and blood-shot, his hands clutching the empty air as though his fingers were about her throat. Then, with a sudden bound and a hoarse imprecation, he darted forward like one possessed with the very frenzy of madness. He snatched up the costly lace robe—the dress which she had last worn—and rent it into unsightly fragments, heaping them upon the fire which burned smolderingly upon the marble hearth.

Once given over to the evil spirit which had entered his body, he behaved like a demon. He tore down the beautiful dresses from the wardrobe, and tearing them into tatters, piled them high upon the hearth. The flames crawled over them and thrust their fiery tongues through the silk and satin and velvet sheen, consuming, ruining, blackening, destroying. Then he opened the jewel caskets and tossed their contents upon the velvet carpet, setting his boot-heel upon them in vindictive fury, grinding them into fragments. It was an awful sight.

He came to a pause only when he had wrought utter ruin and desolation. The frightened servants, aroused from the slumber which they had only just sought, made their way at length to their lady’s chamber. It was then that the maniac grew quiet, and turning abruptly upon them, ordered the fire to be extinguished and the servants to retire. Tremblingly they obeyed him; and when they had gone away again Van Van Alstyne locked the outer door of the suite of rooms which had been Lenore’s, and slipping the key into his pocket, went slowly down the great carved staircase, through the outer door into the gloom without. It was the dark hour which always comes before day, a dense darkness which could almost be felt. But through the gloom Van Alstyne made his way as straight as a die down to the fountain in the midst of the marble basin, upon whose surface water-lilies were thickly matted together. It was a deep and treacherous pool, which had been turned into an ornament for the Van Alstyne grounds. Although not large, it was almost fathomless; and the marble sides served as ornaments, and at the same time marked a spot which would otherwise be dangerous.

Once here, Van Alstyne halted, and drawing the key from his pocket dropped it into the glistening pool. A few ripples, and it found bottom somewhere; and then with a muttered curse he turned away.

Plunging into the shrubbery near, he made his way back to the house—the lonely, deserted house—and up to his own chamber, where, hastily disrobing, he threw himself upon his bed, and after a time fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

The following evening the city newspapers were teeming with sensational paragraphs—just such paragraphs as would drive a proud, sensitive woman to commit suicide. And thus they told the story of Lenore Van Alstyne’s downfall:

“It is with pain that we chronicle the disgrace and desolation which have fallen upon the palatial mansion of one of our most influential citizens. And while our hearts bleed with sympathy for him, we can only condemn the base woman who has been the cause of all this sorrow.

“Last night, at the elegant mansion of a certain millionaire, a grand entertainment was given. The hostess, a beautiful brunette, received her guests in apparently her usual spirits; but a little past ten o’clock she disappeared from the drawing-room, and her guests saw her no more.

“She went to meet her lover, a foreigner, who has been quite marked in his attentions to her of late. It seems that an elopement had been planned which was successfully carried out. She has fled with her lover, this false woman who has brought sorrow to her fond husband’s heart and ruin to the home which was once hers.

“A shadow black as the regions of torment will rest upon her memory, and henceforth the name of Lenore Van Alstyne will be a synonym for everything base and vile. Lost, ruined, irretrievably and forever, it is to be hoped that she will never return to this place. It is believed that the guilty pair have gone to Europe.

“Our distinguished townsman has our earnest sympathy[Pg 141] in his affliction. But such a woman will not be deeply mourned by the community, or long missed.”

Seated in the Hotel de Ville, Paris, glancing over an American newspaper, Lenore read these lines—the awful, condemning words which made her heart stand still with wordless horror and blank despair—and she understood. The man whom she had left had purposely ignored the letter, and kept silent in regard to its contents—that letter which would have made plain the whole bitter truth.

“This is his revenge,” she murmured, brokenly, “and the end is not yet!”

Richard Raleigh had sent a message by a servant to Lillian, requesting her to come down to the drawing-room for a few moments. He had made up his mind that she must be his wife at once. There were reasons—grave and imperative reasons—why the marriage should take place immediately.

Grafton Raleigh, writhing under the burden of conscious guilt which he carried ever with him, awaited Lillian’s appearance with as much feverish impatience as Richard himself.

Up and down the great library paced Grafton Raleigh, his hands folded behind his back, his pale face full of moody light as he paced to and fro, listening intently for some sound from the drawing-room which would tell him that Lillian had obeyed the summons.

But there was no light footstep upon the staircase, no low, sweet voice was heard, no sign of Lillian’s coming. Grafton Raleigh halted at the door of the library, which stood slightly ajar, and bent his head to listen. Down the stairs at last came the echo of footsteps, slow and measured;[Pg 142] a moment more and the servant who had been sent to summon Lillian paused before Richard, who had hastened into the entrance hall to meet him.

“Well, what was Miss Leigh’s answer,” he demanded, hurriedly; “is she coming?”

He was too eager and anxious to appear his usual cold, stately self. The man’s stolid face wore a look of surprise.

“If you please, Mr. Richard,” he returned, obsequiously, “the young lady is not there!”

At sound of his angry voice Grafton Raleigh stepped out into the hall. The man bowed deprecatingly.

“Miss Leigh is not in her room, sir, I assure you,” he said. “I rapped at the door several times, but received no answer, and then I asked Felice to go in and look. She rapped, and still no answer. She then ventured to open the door, which was not locked, and she reported to me that Miss Leigh was not in her room. The fire is out, and no trace of Miss Leigh, so Felice reported; and then I came down at once to you, Mr. Richard.”

Richard’s face was as pale as death. He dismissed the servant and followed his father into the library. Once alone in the room, the two men stood staring at each other with eyes full of blank bewilderment and horror too deep for words.

“She has gone away to escape me!” panted Richard, angrily. “The girl must be mad! Or, father, some one may have told her—all!”

“Hardly. Who would tell her—even granted that any one knows? And no one knows but you and I, Rick; for even if Bess Vernon suspects, she really knows nothing certain. Besides that, she has not seen or had access to Lillian since she was here this morning. Richard, the girl has not gone far, and you must find her!”

“You are right!” he said. “And if I find her I will bring her back to this house my wife!”

“Do so by fair means or foul!” he panted, hoarsely. “She must marry you! There is no loop-hole of escape for us save through your marriage with Lillian Leigh. To this end I have partially consented to Rosamond’s foolish affair with Lyndon. Richard, does it strike you that Jack Lyndon does not care for Rosamond? I am certain that he does not, and that he has sought her in marriage either because he expects to marry a fortune with Rosamond Raleigh or he ‘has an ax of his own to grind.’”

“I know nothing concerning Mr. Lyndon’s affairs,” he said, stiffly, “and I care less! My business at present is to find Lillian, and bring her home my wife! She must consent! We must succeed in this scheme, father, or we shall be utterly ruined. I am going now to search for her. Living or dead, I shall find her!”

He left the house, pale and anxious, his eyes full of an ominous light, his lips compressed sternly under the shadow of his silky mustache.

“Living or dead, I will find her!” he muttered, as he hastened down the long street.

Where was poor Lillian? The anguish and suffering which she had endured since her reluctant consent to a marriage which Richard Raleigh had wrung from her unwilling lips could not be overestimated. Utterly alone, forsaken, friendless, her whole heart clung to the memory of Jack Lyndon with all the strength of its pure devotion. Yet he, the man she loved, had been accused by Richard Raleigh of being her father’s murderer. Could it be possible? The more that Lillian reflected upon the dreadful question, the more convinced was she that before binding herself to Richard Raleigh by the ties of marriage[Pg 144] it was but right and proper, and only justice to Jack, to confront him with the question, “Are you guilty or not guilty?”

The more the poor girl studied this problem, the more clear and plain did her course appear to her. She walked the floor of her room for hours, suffering intensely while she reflected upon the matter.

“Why not go to Jack and ask him?” she panted, wildly, at last; “why not see him alone and accuse him, and mark the effect of my accusation, and at least give him an opportunity to prove his innocence?”

And so at last she decided. She dressed herself hurriedly, the deep mourning-garments making her look pitifully pale and fragile, and at last she left her room and went softly down the servants’ stairs and out of the house unnoticed. Once in the street, she turned in the direction of the office of the “Thunderer.” But by the time she had reached the imposing building her heart failed her, her courage ebbed away, and she dared not enter. After all, it was an awful thing to do—to seek a man in his private office and accuse him of the crime of murder—the man who had only a few days before told her that he loved her and asked her to be his wife. She thought of that, and then of his present engagement to Rosamond Raleigh, and the small hands clinched themselves tightly together, and the white teeth sunk sharply into her under lip with fierce intensity as she hurried away from the vicinity.

She passed most of the day wandering through the most unfrequented quarter of the city, not caring to return to the Raleigh mansion and the man for whom she felt only aversion, yet whose promised wife she was. At last, after much indecision, when the afternoon was far spent, she found herself ascending the long flight of stairs which led to the office of the “Thunderer,” determined to know the worst.

“Come in!” called a well-known voice, in response to[Pg 145] the timid tap upon the great oaken door which shut out the editorial sanctum from view. The door swung slowly open and Lillian crossed the threshold. Jack Lyndon sat at a huge desk covered with papers, briskly engaged in getting ready a leader for the next issue. He turned, and as his eyes fell upon the pale, pitiful face he threw down his pen and started to his feet.

“Lillian—Miss Leigh!”—in an agitated voice—“do you—wish—to—to—”

“To speak with you for a few moments upon matters of importance,” she supplemented. “Yes, Mr. Lyndon.” Then a pause. “Jack! Jack! tell me that you are not guilty! I had rather die a thousand deaths than believe you guilty.”

All the pride of Jack Lyndon’s honest nature was up in arms in a moment. His face flushed crimson and then grew as pale as death. He put out his hand instinctively and clutched at the desk beside him for support.

“I deny your right to arraign me, Miss Leigh,” he was beginning, haughtily. “The crime of which I am guilty—”

The door was thrown open at that very instant, cutting his speech in twain. He had been about to say: “The crime of which I am guilty is loving you too well.”

The interruption was disastrous to Jack, for it was Richard Raleigh who stepped into the room.

“Lillian! Lillian!”—eagerly, anxiously—“I have sought you everywhere! Mother is very ill, and Rosamond absent. We need you at home. Come.”

He drew her hand passively through his arm, and without another word led her away. Once outside in the street, Richard turned and faced Lillian with eager, burning eyes.

“Lillian, listen!” he said. “I have a strange request to make of you. I want to make you my wife—now—within the hour. There is a church just around the corner;[Pg 146] the clergyman, an old friend of mine, is there this moment. Let us go there and be married at once. Will you consent, Lillian?”

She thought of Jack’s words just spoken, and her wan face grew white with despair.

Richard Raleigh entered the church door, and like one in a dream Lillian followed him. She was scarcely conscious of her own actions. Her brain felt numb and dazed; her heart beat low and feeble in her breast; she was faint and trembling, with a slow horror creeping over her which was terrible. Life stretched out around her like a bleak and barren desert, upon which no green thing ever smiled. The future—ah, she dared not look forward to the future, which held not a ray of hope. Forsaken, hopeless—the man she loved, upon whose integrity she had staked her all of faith and trust in her fellow-creatures, false—false and base.

The young heart quailed, as young hearts always do, at sight of such wickedness, and shrunk back appalled.

Her father’s slayer! Could it be possible? A personal affair, which had ended disastrously, between the dead man, her beloved father, and the man she loved, and whose promised wife she had been for one whole bright, happy day.

“To think of it,” she muttered under her breath, as she moved onward at Richard Raleigh’s side, “to think how nearly I had come to being the wife of the man who took my father’s life. Yet, oh, how weak and feeble I am! I who swore beside my father’s lifeless body to track[Pg 147] his slayer down to his just doom. Yet now I shrink—I tremble at the very thought of betraying Jack Lyndon’s guilty secret to the world. And I find myself weakly upholding my own weakness. ‘My father is dead,’ I say to myself, ‘and to deliver Jack Lyndon up to justice would do Gilbert Leigh no good. It would not bring him back to life, restore to me my lost content, or make my father in that other world any happier to know that the man who took his life must expiate that crime upon the gallows.’ Oh, fool, mad fool that I am! It is because my heart—my weak, womanish heart—still clings to Jack Lyndon, and will not hate him as he deserves. But I must learn to hate him, or at least to be free from him even in thought. And I may as well consent to this marriage that Richard Raleigh proposes, since the hateful marriage is to be, and since by that alone I can secure Jack Lyndon’s freedom from punishment. And—ah, Heaven help me!—we are at the church even now. It is too late to draw back. The die is cast!”

They were ascending the steps of the sacred edifice in the pale, gray shades of the gathering twilight. Down the long streets upon either side lights were beginning to twinkle, and the electric light at the corner had put forth its round, silvery eye, and was winking and blinking derisively upon the passers below.

One swift glance toward the towering granite building which held the office of the “Thunderer.” She could see the office windows brightly lighted, and could even discern the dim outlines of a dark figure seated at the long desk, with bowed head resting upon one hand in an attitude of melancholy and dejection.

For just a moment a swift pang shot through the girl’s tender heart; but she shrunk from it and pushed it aside, as wicked and unholy. She seemed to lose all consciousness of time and place. A black doom seemed to threaten her; a cloud hung over her life which nothing could lift or[Pg 148] move; voices sounded in her ear. She was conscious of some one speaking, then asking a question in a slow, solemn voice. Something impelled her to answer, to assent, and she did so. Dim lights danced before her eyes, which, “as in a glass, darkly,” could discern a tall form standing before her, and then—like a knell of doom—came the words: “I pronounce you husband and wife!”

Faint and trembling, she reeled unsteadily, and would have fallen but Richard Raleigh caught the slight form in his arms.

“Poor child!” she heard him say, softly, and his voice sounded more gentle than she had ever heard it before. “She is quite overcome. Her father has just died, you see, and she is weak and faint and ill from want of sleep. She has been nursing him, sitting by his bedside for many weary nights.”

Lillian lifted her horror-filled eyes to his dusky, devil-may-care face. Standing at God’s holy altar, he was telling a deliberate falsehood for which there was no excuse or palliation. Heaven help her! What manner of man was this—the man who even now was drawing her passive hand through his arm? while a soft, silky voice—a voice which she had never hated more bitterly than now—now, when her hateful chains were forged forever—was whispering in her ear:

“There is some mistake,” she faltered, slowly, putting her hand to her brow, and pushing back the thick golden hair, as though its weight oppressed her. “I—I—do not know—Oh, sir”—turning to the surprised clergyman with a wild, imploring gesture—“tell me, am I really and lawfully the wife of this man, Richard Raleigh?”

“You are the wife of Richard Raleigh,” he returned, quietly, “and may Heaven grant you all happiness!”

The shrill, unnatural laughter resounded through the silent church, and the two supernumeraries who had enacted the rôle of witnesses shrunk back in wonder and surprise not unmixed with alarm.

“She is really ill,” he explained, “poor child! I will take her home to my father’s house at once.”

“And you are quite sure, Mr. Richard, that your father approves the step that you have taken?” queried the clergyman, gravely.

“You may set your mind at rest upon that score, Mr. Woods,” he said, deferentially. “Indeed, the marriage has my father’s hearty approval. Only we did not expect to be married this evening, and that explains the privacy of the affair. My poor little wife is quite friendless and homeless, you see, and it seems right that I should give her a home at once. Just hand me the marriage certificate, Mr. Woods. Ah, yes—thank you.”

And the folded document was placed in his pocket, a generous fee bestowed upon the clergyman, a present added for the witnesses, and then Richard Raleigh led his unwilling bride from the church. The eyes of the clergyman followed the pair, and an uneasy look crossed his fine old face.

“I hope and pray that there is nothing wrong in this affair!” he murmured, slowly. “I had rather die than be guilty of a wrong of that kind! I consider clergymen somewhat responsible in such matters. They have no right to perform the marriage ceremony when they know that they are binding together two lives where one is perhaps coerced into the compact. Ah, well! I will watch this case from a distance, and I trust to Heaven that all is well!”

Out upon the pavement, Richard Raleigh halted to summon a passing cab. His face was flushed with triumph; his eyes shone with a fiendish light; he was arrogant and[Pg 150] overbearing in his manner. He saw the way to victory now, and there was no more need to fear. As they stood beside the curb, and waited for the cab to halt, Jack Lyndon, passing down the street on his way home to a six-o’clock dinner, saw them, and his face grew as white as death. He came to a halt. They had just left the church. Jack could see that, and a slow horror crept over his heart like a chill.

Just at that moment Lillian lifted her head, and their eyes met—met for one brief, fleeting moment, yet long enough to hold a lingering glance. It was to be a farewell.

“I shall know that look when we meet beyond this ‘speck of time,’” quoted Jack Lyndon slowly to himself, as he moved down the street and was lost to sight.

Then Richard Raleigh aroused Lillian from the strange stupor which seemed to have taken sudden possession of her faculties.

“Come, darling,” he said, in a low, persuasive tone, as the cab drew up to the sidewalk, “let me assist you into the cab, and we will go home at once. You look tired out, and this unexpected wedding of ours has been too much for you.”

She was shivering like one with a chill, as he placed her in a cab and seated himself at her side. They drove rapidly away down the street, and Lillian’s head fell back upon the cushion of the seat. Into her beautiful eyes a strange, wild gleam crept swiftly. She looked like one who sees before her an awful precipice or bottomless abyss, from which nothing can save or rescue her.

“Take me to the grave-yard!” she moaned; “I want to go to papa’s grave. Oh, Richard—Mr. Raleigh, take me there for just a few moments, and I will ask no more.”

“You must be mad!” he panted, harshly. “The idea of asking such a thing. Your father’s grave, indeed, and[Pg 151] you not a half hour married! Lillian, upon my soul, I believe that you are going mad!”

“Yes, I am going mad!” she repeated, bleakly; “I have no doubt of that. I must have been mad when I consented to marry you, Richard Raleigh, for my life is utterly ruined, and—”

“Hush!” he hissed, sibilantly; “I forbid you to utter another word of that, Lillian Raleigh! You are to obey me henceforth, remember that! If you are obedient and tractable you will be a happy wife, and shall never regret the step that you have taken to-day. But if you—you defy me—” he drew his breath hard, and his voice died away into silence.

The cab stopped before the Raleigh mansion, and a few moments later Lillian was upstairs in her own room, its door securely locked; while Richard sought his father in the library.

“Won at last!” he cried, triumphantly, as he entered the room. “Lillian Leigh is my wife, and the Raleigh fortune is safe!”

He came to a startled halt. In his haste, and the mad exultation which had taken possession of him, he had not observed that there was another person present beside Grafton Raleigh—a diminutive figure in seal-brown velvet and flashing diamonds; an arch, smiling face, with a glare of malice peeping from her bright eyes—Bessie Vernon.

He fell back with a stifled exclamation; then rallied his forces and greeted her with effusion. Ten minutes later he left the library, and stole upstairs to the door of Lillian’s room, and rapped upon the panel.

“Open the door, Lillian, please?” he pleaded. “Don’t be cold and angry with me, sweetheart! I want you to come down with me to my father.”

The key grated in the lock, the door flew open, and there upon the threshold, looking like a spirit, in a flowing white cashmere robe, with her golden hair coiled loosely about her graceful head, stood Lillian. Her eyes glittered feverishly; her face was pale as death, and resolute.

“We may as well come to an understanding now, Richard Raleigh!” she said, in a clear, icy voice. “I have gone through this farce of a marriage, but I hate you, hate you, hate you! I am your wife in name only, and I desire that you keep out of my sight. If your father wishes to see me, he knows where he can find me. I married you to save Jack Lyndon—the man I love—from an awful doom; but I loathe and despise you unutterably, and I shall never look upon you as aught but a snake in the grass—a man whom I can never respect—my bitter enemy. Go! I have no more to say. I am dead to you now, Richard Raleigh—just as dead as though the grave had closed over my lifeless form.”

Lillian Leigh’s wedding-day was a thing of the past, and what had it brought her? Only black, bitter misery and woe unspeakable.

“Do not grieve so, my darling. That man is a fiend incarnate, but we will unmask him to the world. We will rise superior to him and his petty nature—his engrossing hatred. He is mean and despicable, and the world shall know the truth and see him as he is. He has kept back the letter that I wrote him; concealed it from the knowledge of the world; held his peace as to my explanation, and then boldly denounced you and me to the public at[Pg 153] large. A man like that would commit any crime. But I shall punish him! As sure as I live, I shall punish him! When can you be ready to return to America, Lenore?”

“Within the hour!” she answered, her eyes flashing, her voice ringing forth sweet and clear—“at a moment’s notice! To vindicate my honor, to make my traducers bow before me in humiliation, to be set right in the eyes of the world of society—that fashionable, hypocritical society which has eaten my bread and enjoyed my hospitality times innumerable—I will go back at any time, Cyril—now!”

She was pale with excitement, her large dark eyes shining like stars, her bosom heaving with indignation, like a beautiful, outraged queen, as she stood in the center of the great sunlit room in an old Italian palace, her white silk robe trailing behind her over the marble floor. Cyril Fayne felt his heart thrill madly at sight of her glorious beauty, this woman for whose sake he had suffered so much and so long, this woman who, in turn, had borne so heavy a burden for his sake, and for his love counted the world well lost. And he gnashed his teeth in mad despair at thought of the mistake that he had made in leaving the letter of explanation behind for Van Van Alstyne’s private perusal.

“I should have gone to him—openly and frankly—like a man,” he said to himself, “and told him the whole truth, and claimed my wife openly before the whole world! But Lenore, poor child! was so weak and worn with the burden that she was bearing, so nervous and fanciful, so broken down in spirit, that I could not bear the thought of exposing her to his brutal rage. And so I did what I believed to be the best. But I have acted the part of a coward in the eyes of the world, and now I must suffer. In my blind haste and mad love for my darling, I paused not to consider after consequences; I did not stop to count the cost to her, dear love, who has suffered so for me. I should have remembered the nature of the madman with[Pg 154] whom I had to deal! I have been to blame for my headlong precipitancy. But I had lived so long without her, had suffered so intensely, had missed her so, that when I saw her before me once more, and knew that my long years of searching for her were over at last, and that she loved me still, had always loved me, that we had been separated and kept apart by base treachery, then I struck the blow which broke her bonds and gave her back to me. Ah, Geoffrey Grey! Geoffrey Grey! false friend, wicked, vile traitor! the day will surely come—oh, yes, I shall live to see it!—when we will stand face to face, and then—”

He was pacing to and fro, his face white and drawn, his hands locked convulsively together, upon his features the impress of mad despair. Up and down the vast apartment he paced in stern silence.

All at once his eyes fell upon the figure of a man passing slowly down the sunlit street between the long rows of ilex-trees. A handsome, effeminate face, with a womanish mouth half hidden by the silky beard and mustache of pale gold. A weak, uncertain, vacillating face, with large, limpid blue eyes and straight, delicate features. A man for women to rave over, jest with, and forget! He was sauntering idly along in the golden, glittering sunlight, attired in a faultless gray suit, with a red rose in his button-hole, swinging a tiny cane lazily in one hand as he walked.

A swift glance, then an awful change passed over Cyril Fayne’s face. With a hoarse cry, like the cry of a wild beast suddenly brought face to face with its prey, he dashed open the great plate-glass window, and springing through it, was upon the broken stones of the pavement in an instant.

“Geoffrey Grey!” he hissed between his close-clinched teeth, “I have you at last! For years I have hunted you down, but always and ever in vain; you would manage to[Pg 155] elude me always. I followed you from place to place, but when I came you would fly, and thus escape me. But justice shall be done, vengeance shall have its own at last. You are in my power, Geoffrey Grey, and the same world can contain us both no longer! Villain, coward, traitor, false friend and traducer of womankind, your hour has come!”

For just a moment the graceful figure stood transfixed with horror and overcome with surprise, like one suddenly petrified. The smile had died upon his lip, his face had blanched to an ashen pallor, he was trembling in every limb. Still the white-faced Nemesis stood over him. The coward winced.

“Don’t,” pleaded the low, musical voice, and the gray-clad figure recoiled from the stern, threatening gaze of the other. “Do not—hurt me—Cyril! I—I never did all that of which you accuse me. I—I swear that I am sorry for what I have done!”

A thought flashed like an inspiration across his brain. Slowly his grasp relaxed the miscreant, and his voice, stern and cold, asked the question:

“Suppose that I agree to spare you, Geoffrey Grey—suppose that I should let you go free, what are you willing to do to show your penitence? But, bah! I am a fool to trust you, you false fiend! Stay! if I guard you well, if I remain constantly at your side so that you can not escape me, strive as you may, if I take you back thus guarded to America, will you bear witness to Lenore Fayne’s innocence? Will you take back the wrong that you have done, the evil that you have wrought, and clear her fair name before the world? Speak, villain! And if you agree to my proposition—remember that you can never escape me. I will guard you always like a jailer! I will never let you out of my sight, night nor day, until we have landed in America, and you have made public all this vile plot against a pure woman’s happiness.

“Answer me, Geoffrey Grey! Will you try to retrieve your miserable past by this one act of justice? Will you endeavor to atone in this manner for the unpardonable wrong that you have done Lenore Fayne and myself, the husband from whom your villainous treachery separated her for seventeen long, bad, black years?”

Dead silence. The leaves of the ilex-trees swayed slowly in a passing breeze; no sound broke the dead calm. A bright-eyed donizella tripped past; a group of ugly lazaroni gathered upon the opposite side of the street, begging alms in guttural Italian. Cyril Fayne stood like a statue glaring down into the shrinking face of his enemy run down at last.

For just a moment Richard Raleigh stood in the corridor outside Lillian’s room, in utter silence; then, with a muttering, he turned and walked away. Back to the library he hastened, finding, to his relief, that Mrs. Vernon had taken her departure. Pale and troubled, he sunk into a seat, gazing into the fire in moody silence.

“Well, the deed is done!” he said, harshly, with a swift upward glance into his father’s face, “and I have caught a Tartar.”

“Nonsense, Rick; I would pay no more heed to her caprices than to the blowing of the wind. All we want is her signature.”

“Very true. But, my dear sir, the girl is capable of[Pg 157] anything. Suppose she refuses to sign our little document?”

“She must sign it,” he returned, firmly. “If she is not willing we must force her into it, that’s all. Rick, the day for scruples and foolish hesitation is past. It is ruin if we do not get control of—”

“Hush! The very walls have ears; and since I have seen Bessie Vernon in the house I am uneasy. This matter is of vital importance to us both; to me it is more than you know. There is something which I have never dared to tell you, and I prefer keeping it to myself. But, believe me, if Lillian is not coerced into signing this paper, there will be blacker trouble for me than you realize.”

“I am sorry, Richard. But then I do not anticipate much difficulty in the matter. Let her alone until morning; then your mother must go and see her in her room, do the maternal, treat her like a young princess, flatter and defer to her, spoil her generally, and secure that signature by fair means or foul. After that I will wash my hands of the management of your wife.”

And while the worthy pair consulted together, Bessie Vernon was standing in an anteroom where every word distinctly reached her ears, waiting for Rosamond to come. She had accompanied that young lady home on an errand, after which she would return to the Vernon mansion for a longer visit. After awhile Mrs. Vernon left the anteroom and tripped lightly upstairs, moved softly past Rosamond’s door and down the long corridor to the wing in which Lillian’s room was situated.

Her face was pale with anger, the large, soft eyes were flashing indignantly, the small hands clinched as though she longed to strike some one.

“The hypocrite!” she muttered, softly; “he has just devoted himself to me of late. And he wrote me a letter[Pg 158] in which he spoke of himself as fated to marry a woman whom he did not love, while his heart was attracted elsewhere, though he did not, of course, dare to say all that was in his mind. And now—now,” catching her breath hard, “he bursts in upon his father with the announcement of his marriage. Ah, Richard Raleigh, I will teach you a lesson! You shall learn that a woman’s friendship is not to be trifled with. How dared he make me believe all that foolish sentiment? I am provoked with myself for believing it. But I will pay him back for his falsehood—I declare I will!”

Poor little silly moth! She had singed her wings in the flame of flattery, and her vanity was suffering now, and her pride was horribly wounded.

“Miss Leigh!” she cried, softly, through the key-hole—“I beg your pardon—Mrs. Raleigh—will you open the door just a moment? I have something of importance to say to you. It is I—Bessie Vernon.”

Wondering somewhat, for Lillian had never exchanged a dozen words with Mrs. Vernon in her life, she opened the door.

“Hush!” she whispered, warningly; “do not speak a loud word. I have not a moment to waste, for I must get back to Rosamond. I have just learned of your marriage.” Lillian shuddered. “And I want to warn you. If Grafton Raleigh or his hopeful son try to get you to sign a paper—a legal document of some description—refuse to do it. Remain firm; do not be frightened into it. Go to some competent lawyer and tell him that these two men hold in their possession a document which I firmly believe to be a will, and which bequeaths property—I do not know how much—to one Lillian Leigh. The paper reads to the effect that the testator gives his all to his beloved[Pg 159] niece, Lillian Leigh. Hush! I hear Rosamond! I have no time for further explanations. Good-night!” and she was gone, leaving Lillian in a perfect whirl of excitement.

The next morning Mrs. Raleigh was induced to go to Lillian’s room and accompany her down to breakfast. The meal was a constrained one, and Lillian was devoutly thankful when it was over. But, like everything in this world, it came to an end at last, and then Grafton Raleigh invited Lillian into the library. With pale face and compressed lips she followed him, while Richard brought up the rear.

Once in the library and the door closed, a strange chill passed over Lillian. She felt that a decisive moment had come. Grafton Raleigh led the way to the escritoire.

“My dear Lillian,” he began, taking a gold pen in a jeweled holder from the silver and ebony rack, “I would like to have you sign your name to a little business matter. You see, as a married woman you will be expected to sign deeds in conjunction with your husband. Richard is about to convey a piece of property, and he cannot legally do so without his wife’s signature. We have sent for a notary—Ah! there he is now,” as the door opened and a grave-looking man entered the room.

“I can not sign any paper, Mr. Raleigh, without first knowing its contents,” she said, firmly. “My father taught me to read, understand, and weigh well any document to which I am requested to sign my name. Pardon me, but I must first read the paper.”

“You shall not read it!” he cried, angrily. “You are my wife, and must obey me. Sign your name, Lillian—there,” indicating a line.

“I will not. I must first know its contents. Besides,[Pg 160] I have no right to sign business documents; I am not yet of age.”

“If this be true, I refuse to act in the matter,” he said. “Mr. Raleigh, there is some mistake here—suppose we postpone action for the present?”

And, smiling urbanely and bowing courteously, the little notary bowed himself out.

The servants returned to their duties, and Lillian stood facing her husband, alone.

“Curse you!” he muttered, harshly. “You little demon! you have ruined my father and blasted your own prospects as well. And all because you are heart-broken for the sake of Jack Lyndon. You think to spite me by this conduct, but you shall learn that I am master. Now, listen, madame, and you shall hear the whole truth. You have been duped—deceived—made a fool of. Jack Lyndon did not murder your father—and Jack Lyndon loves you as he loves his own soul. And—you are my wife!”

What a journey that was across the Atlantic! With Cyril Fayne standing guard over the white-faced, scared-looking man who crouched in a retired corner of the deck all day, and at night was locked in a state-room to which Fayne himself held the key, guarded like a prisoner on his way to prison, never for a moment left alone, constantly under surveillance, Geoffrey Grey will never forget that journey until the day he dies. But at last the end came, as everything comes to an end some time or other, and

And at last the vessel steamed into port, and, half dead with terror and cowardly shrinking, Geoffrey Grey was taken on shore, and, still closely guarded, conveyed to the nearest hotel.

It was an awful task to which Cyril Fayne had pledged himself; but he persevered in grim determination, his face set and stern, and an ominous light in his resolute dark eyes.

He knew that the crisis of his life—his own life and Lenore’s—was close at hand. The hour was drawing nigh when men should acknowledge their mutual sufferings, their mutual wrongs, or every man’s hand should be against him, and his hand against every man in war henceforth. He shut his teeth closely together with a repressed cry, heartsick and weary.

“But she must be defended,” he panted, eagerly, “she must be upheld by a strong arm; and mine is surely strong enough for her to lean upon. The world shall learn the truth and acknowledge its error, and shall beg her pardon—my sweet, white lily flower, my pearl of purity!”

And his face froze over into stern determination. It would have been bad for Senator Van Alstyne had he chanced to meet Cyril Fayne at that moment.

The Raleigh mansion was brilliantly illuminated, and a grand reception was in progress, for fashion is vigorous and tyrannical, and Mrs. Raleigh knew that she must throw open her doors to her dear five hundred friends, and make known Richard’s marriage to Lillian Leigh, or the fashionable world would conclude at once that the marriage was obnoxious to her. So, though secretly much against her own desires, she had issued cards for a grand reception in honor of her son’s marriage.

But she found more difficulty with Lillian than she had apprehended. At first the girl refused outright to appear[Pg 162] at all, but the entreaties of Mrs. Raleigh were not without effect. Lillian felt that, after all, it would be a small concession for her to appear in the drawing-room for a short time; and since it would keep peace in the family, she consented at last. But she refused firmly to lay aside her mourning. In vain did Mrs. Raleigh lay before her the enormity of a bride appearing in black; her words were wasted. The utmost to which her persuasion could induce Lillian to agree was a compromise between black and white. So a beautiful costume had been ordered of fancy black-and-white crêpe lisse, with heavy jet ornaments. The girl looked like a queen in mourning-garments as she stood at Mrs. Raleigh’s side, under the blazing chandelier in the great drawing-room, receiving the guests as they arrived.

Every one seemed conscious of a strange restraint—a feeling pervaded the apartment as though they were expecting some one or something to come. It came like an electric shock as the voice of the footman announced, in loud tones:

Van Alstyne, seated at Bessie Vernon’s side, dropped the bouquet of orchids which he was just presenting to that lady, and started to his feet, his red face fairly purple with wrath—and was it fear that lurked in his snaky little eyes?

A strange silence fell upon the room as Cyril entered with Lenore leaning upon his arm—Lenore all in bridal white—a robe of shimmering satin strewn with seed-pearls. Her face was very pale; but her head was held aloft in haughty grace, and her dark eyes blazed with scorn. Following closely in their wake was Geoffrey Grey.

The guests seemed to shrink closer together—the female portion, at least—as though they thought it contamination to even breathe the same atmosphere with this woman whom they had hunted down.

Cyril Fayne bowed lowly before the astonished assemblage; then he spoke, and the words that he uttered froze the audience into silence.

“I present to you,” he began, in a clear, ringing voice, “my wife, Mrs. Lenore Fayne, and I wish to tell you our strange story—a story which I believed had been made public long ago, or I would have left Europe before this to set right in the eyes of the world the woman so bitterly wronged.

“My friends, this lady became my wife nearly eighteen years ago. See, here is the marriage certificate. We were married in Arles, France, as you will see by glancing at this document. We were separated by fraud and treachery—separated, and I believed her dead, and she believed me false. Afterward she read my name in the list of deaths on board a burning steamer, and she too believed me gone to my last account.

“Her only relatives—the Raleighs—were traveling through France. They found her and took her home to America with them, and with them she resided for years. But she never told her story. They did not know the truth; and when Senator Van Alstyne asked her hand in marriage they looked upon it as a grand match for her; and so, urged and influenced—pressed upon all sides—Lenore consented and became the wife of Senator Van Alstyne. Of the life which she led with him I will not speak. In the meantime I came to America, and, roving about aimlessly, I saw my wife one day by accident, and learned that she was married to another man.

“In the disguise of an old woman, a fortune-teller, I managed to get into her presence, and, by the aid of a little juggling, which I had learned in the East, threw the party into consternation, in the midst of which I managed to slip a note into her hands.

“I afterward wrote her a full explanation of what had happened, and in her reply I learned what I had suspected,[Pg 164] that she loved me still, and hated the man Van Alstyne. And she was my wife! To me not all the years of separation could prevent my claim. I determined to claim her, after which a legal process would settle all questions, and a repetition of the marriage ceremony would make all binding. In the eyes of God she was my wife.

“And now comes the point wherein I blame myself severely. Lenore was weak and nervous. She feared Van Alstyne with a terror beyond expression, and she shrunk from an open explanation. Weakly I yielded, and we went away together, leaving a letter for Van Alstyne, explaining all.

“He found and read that letter, learned the whole truth, then he went down to his drawing-room, into the presence of his guests, and told them a deliberate falsehood—that Lenore had fled with her lover, that she was base and vile.

“I acknowledge the weakness of my own course; but it was a mistake made through the kindest intentions toward my suffering wife. She did not know all that had taken place until we had been living in Italy for some time, our marriage having been celebrated for the second time upon my friend Thornton’s yacht. All formalities were rigorously observed. She is my lawful wife.

“The very day that we learned the truth and how Van Alstyne had sought, by the ruin of her fair fame, to obtain revenge, that very day Providence threw into my way the man who had wrought the sorrow of our lives—Geoffrey Grey. I have forced him to return with us to America to bear witness to the truth of my words, and the secret of Lenore Fayne’s life. Geoffrey Grey, speak, and tell the truth, the whole truth, I command you.”

Geoffrey Grey lifted his handsome head and gazed about him with a crest-fallen expression.

“I acknowledge my own wrong-doing,” he said, slowly. “Years ago, when I was only twenty-one, I loved[Pg 165] Lenore Vane; but she never cared for me. I was accustomed to flattery and homage, and the thought that she did not love me, and would never care for me, made me desperate. I asked her to be my wife, but she refused, and refused me with scorn, ending at last by acknowledging her love for Cyril Fayne. I had never liked him; he was always so grand and dignified; he never joined me in my mad escapades; and he loved Lenore so dearly and with such jealous tenderness that he would scarcely permit me to speak her name. At last they were married, and not long afterward Cyril Fayne was called away to England upon business, and Lenore was left alone. In an evil hour an awful plot entered my brain, and I determined to separate husband and wife, if possible, forever. I planned a tale of Cyril’s treachery and falseness. I made Lenore believe, with such apparently overwhelming proof that no woman dare doubt it that Cyril Fayne had gone to England with another woman, and that she was a deserted wife. About that time a steamer was burned at sea. I caused a list of the dead to be shown Lenore—a list which contained the names of Cyril Fayne and a woman registered upon the steamer’s books as his wife. It is useless to add that I had caused the false report to be printed that she might see and believe in his treachery. A few months later her child was born—a puny little girl. A short time after its birth I sought Lenore again and asked her to be my wife. She refused me with bitter scorn, averring that, true or false, she loved Cyril Fayne, and would never love another. In my anger I determined to be avenged, and I—I stole her child and took it to America. Once there, I placed it in an orphan asylum—the asylum of St. Vincent in this city. The child was afterward removed from the asylum by the Raleighs under the name of Noisette—Noisette Duval.”

There was a wild cry, and Rosamond Raleigh started to her feet, pale and trembling. There in the door-way stood[Pg 166] a slight, childish figure—a pale, sad face, with great, dark, unearthly eyes—in one hand a bit of amber satin, while the shadowy fingers plied the brush as usual with swift, deft strokes—never ending—never ending.

Another wild shriek went up from Rosamond Raleigh’s pale lips, then she tottered a few steps and fell to the floor. When they lifted her and bore her from the room, the overwrought brain had given way, and she was raving like a mad woman.

For a time the guests stood staring in utter consternation; then Van Van Alstyne started to his feet. The apparition had disappeared.

“My friends,” he began, trying to control his mad rage, “I pronounce this scene a bit of clap-trap and stage effect which is too ludicrous to be believed. I look upon the woman yonder,” pointing toward Lenore with such a look of hatred upon his face that he was absolutely repulsive—“as—as—”

He never finished. With one mad bound Cyril Fayne darted forward, but before he could lay his hands upon Van Alstyne the senator fell limply to the floor, stricken down by apoplexy.

Society rallied about Lenore, and did all in its power to make amends for what had occurred—all but Bessie Vernon, who refused stubbornly to acknowledge Lenore as an acquaintance. Rosamond Raleigh was very ill with brain fever, and in her delirium the burden of her cry was ever:

“Take her away—take her away! She is painting my ball-dress with her heart’s blood!”

And as time passed it began to be currently reported that the proud Miss Raleigh would never again recover the[Pg 167] full use of her mental faculties. Old Arbuthnot appeared fairly infatuated, and hovered about the Raleigh mansion like an unquiet spirit. Presents of rare flowers, costly wines and dainty luxuries found their way daily to the Raleigh mansion, and were duly huddled into an anteroom out of Rosamond’s sight. It was a case of real affection upon the part of the railroad king, which brought tears of regret to Mrs. Raleigh’s eyes—regret because of the fear which possessed her that Rosamond would never be in a mental condition to accept Arbuthnot and his millions.

In the meantime Jack Lyndon did the coldly polite and courteous lover, calling once a day with punctilious courtesy to inquire after Rosamond’s health; but though he was told that in her delirium she called him to come to her, and although her mother hinted that a sight of him would please the sick girl, he made no effort to see her.

He looked as he felt—a disappointed man, a man who has risked all upon one venture and lost.

Lillian kept her own room continually; but she felt it her duty to offer to help nurse Rosamond, so it came about that she was installed there as assistant to Mrs. Raleigh.

One day that lady requested Lillian to go up to Richard’s room for a bottle of some particular lotion which had been placed there and forgotten.

“Run up there, please, Lillian,” urged the now quite urbane mother-in-law. “You will find the bottle in the closet in the corner of Rick’s room, near the fire-place. He is not there. The idea of your shrinking from entering your own husband’s room on an errand! Richard has gone to see Doctor Thompson. A consultation between a half dozen physicians is to be held over Rosamond to-morrow, and he has gone to appoint the hour. Make haste and get the lotion, Lillian; I must not neglect Rosamond for a moment.”

So Lillian left the room and went reluctantly to that which Richard Raleigh occupied. The door-bell had been muffled and all noises hushed on account of the sufferer; so Lillian did not hear the outer door open, and was not aware of Jack Lyndon’s presence in the house until she saw him coming swiftly, silently up the staircase straight to where she stood. It was too late to retreat, so she stood her ground, greeting him with a cool nod, and answering his questions as to Rosamond’s state with swift conciseness.

“Jack Lyndon did not murder your father, and he loves you as he loves his own soul!”

She remembered the words, and her heart almost broke with its burden of anguish. She turned away, but Jack caught her hand in his own.

“Stay! Just a moment, Lillian—Mrs. Raleigh!” he corrected himself. “I have never had an opportunity to speak with you before since the late unpleasant events. Lillian, tell me, why do you hate me so?”

“Hate you? I do not. I never can,” she faltered, and before he could recover from his surprise she flitted past him, down the long hall to the room which was occupied by Richard Raleigh. For just a moment she hesitated before the door, a feeling of intense repugnance creeping over her. Then she remembered Mrs. Raleigh’s peremptory order; she laid her hand upon the knob, and opened the door softly, slowly.

The room was vacant. A strange sensation crept over the girl’s heart; a feeling that something was about to happen.

“What is the matter with me?” she exclaimed, impatiently. “I feel like a detective on the track of a criminal, and who has nearly hunted him down!”

Just then her eyes fell upon an object which lay upon Richard’s desk—a large, roomy escritoire which stood beside[Pg 169] a window. It was a pencil, an odd-looking affair of gold, in a long, flat shape, which terminated in a snake’s head, with two tiny rubies for eyes.

“Papa’s pencil!” she panted, in a low, horror-stricken voice. “Papa’s gold pencil, the one that he carried for so many years, and that he used to say he meant me to have. How came it here? How came it in Richard Raleigh’s possession?”

She turned it slowly over in her trembling fingers, then she returned it to the desk.

“He must explain how that pencil came into his possession,” she said, resolutely. “I will know!”

She moved slowly across the room to the closed door beside the fire-place and opened it swiftly. Her face was pale with excitement, and her heart beat fast.

One glance into the interior revealed a large closet in the wall, with a row of shelves at the back. There was no sign of the bottle for which she had been sent, and Lillian turned to the shelves and began to search for it there. Still no sign of its whereabouts. Only a box remained to be searched—a large box which stood below the row of shelves. Though much against her will, Lillian at last lifted the lid and began to glance over the contents.

A suit of men’s clothing rolled into a bundle. Half consciously she turned it over. It was a plain, dark business suit, but stained with mud and water, as though the clothing had fallen into a gutter, and, rolled up inside the bundle, a book, the sight of which made Lillian cry aloud with mad horror and despair.

“Papa’s book!” she panted, brokenly, “the book for which he went back to the office that night and never returned—only his dead body all bruised and blackened from a murderer’s clutches. What does this mean?”

She opened the book swiftly, eagerly. A note fell from its pages—a note in Richard Raleigh’s handwriting, and signed by his name, begging Gilbert Leigh not to expose[Pg 170] him to the world; acknowledging himself as a forger and embezzler; but adding that if the truth were known, and the house of Raleigh & Raleigh should cast him off, he would be ruined beyond redemption. How came that book in his possession? The awful question struck to her heart like a blow.

She staggered to her feet, still grasping the book in one trembling hand; and turning swiftly about, she stood face to face with Richard Raleigh.

Silence—the dead, unbroken silence of the grave. He stood like one turned to stone, his dark eyes blazing with a lurid light.

“Richard Raleigh!” her low voice was full of wordless horror, “your bad, black secret has come to light at last. I am going now to denounce you. False villain, your hour has come!”

She left the room, carrying the book in her hand. Still Richard Raleigh never spoke, never moved. When she was gone he started suddenly, like one aroused from a bad dream. Going over to the door of the room, he locked it securely.

At the foot of the stairs Lillian’s strength suddenly gave way, and she sunk down upon the floor in a huddled heap, in a dead swoon.

Mrs. Raleigh, tired with waiting for her to return, came to search for her, and found her lying there with that book clasped to her breast, her eyes closed—no sign of life. She summoned a servant and had the unconscious girl carried to her own apartment; then she went back to Rosamond’s side. There was a little change apparent in the sick girl—it was hoped, for the better.

There was a light step upon the stairs; the door of[Pg 171] Rosamond’s room opened softly. Mrs. Raleigh lifted her heavy eyes and saw Lenore standing near.

“Auntie, you are quite worn out,” said a sweet, compassionate voice. “I have come to relieve you. Go and lie down for awhile, and I will do everything for Rosamond.”

She led the exhausted woman away to another room and made her lie down, while she bathed the aching brow with Cologne water; then darkening the windows, she went out and left Mrs. Raleigh just sinking into a peaceful slumber. Then Lenore went back to Rosamond.

Upstairs in his own room Richard Raleigh stood staring blankly into vacancy. His face was like marble; all the triumph had left his eyes, and fear and horror unutterable were in its place. He went over to the escritoire at last and sunk into a seat before it.

“She means it!” he muttered, fiercely, “she means every word that she uttered! She will set the bloodhounds of the law upon my track, and I shall die a horrible death upon the gallows, or drag out an endless existence in a prison cell. I will not! No, I will circumvent her yet!”

“I hereby confess that I am the murderer of Gilbert Leigh. He held in his possession certain facts in regard to my private affairs which he refused to relinquish, and which he declared to be his duty to lay before the house of Raleigh & Raleigh. I knew that he would keep his word; I knew also that if these facts were to become known I would be disgraced and turned adrift. I used every endeavor to induce Leigh to give up this book in which his information had all been noted, and to give up at the same time his intention of exposing me; but he refused. I met him one night not far from his own door,[Pg 172] and endeavored to take forcible possession of the book, but he fought like a tiger, and in the struggle met his death.

“The very day after his burial, an old man—a stranger in the city—came to our office and introduced himself as the only brother of Gilbert Leigh, and left in our care his private papers, including his will, in which he bequeathed all he possessed to his niece, Lillian. That night the old man died suddenly in the street, with heart disease. The Raleigh fortune was in peril. Wild speculations had made us tremble for our own safety; and my father and I conceived the idea of retaining the will and inducing Lillian to become my wife; after which I believed it an easy matter to get her to sign her property over to me as her lawful guardian; then I could rescue the tottering house of Raleigh. The fortune, which belongs by right to Lillian Leigh Raleigh, is estimated at over a million. She has become my wife, but she hates me and loves Jack Lyndon. I confess that I separated these two by false representations. He was led to believe her false; she was made to believe that in a quarrel with her father Jack Lyndon had killed him. I threatened to hand him over to the authorities unless she consented to marry me. But she repudiated me after the marriage, and declared that she had sacrificed herself to save the man she loved. I swear that this is a full and true confession, so help me God!

“Richard Raleigh.”

Silence in the room—utter silence as the last words are traced. Richard Raleigh’s face was like marble, and his eyes wore a hunted, desperate look. He opened a drawer in the escritoire and took from it a small leather case; it contained two revolvers—one was empty, the other loaded. He removed the latter from its crimson velvet bed and passed his hand lightly over it, a cynical expression upon his face.

“Six shots,” he muttered, sharply; “six chances of emigration to another world!”

His lip curled scornfully; he threw his handsome head back with a gesture of disdain.

“Bah! what do I fear?” he cried, contemptuously. “What is it that Bulwer says:

Farewell, dear world!” he cried, sarcastically. “I am going to another, and, let us hope, a better one! Hush! I hear the sound of footsteps upon the stairs. Come, my friend; the hour draws nigh. The officers! the officers!” he cried, starting up. “But I shall escape them!” he added, sinking slowly back into his seat once more.

The revolver was pressed against his temple; the footsteps came nearer—nearer; they halt at the door of his chamber, and then a loud rap resounded throughout the house—a rap which was followed by a startling report. Richard’s fingers closed over the weapon in his grasp; he pulled the trigger.

In Rosamond’s sick-room, whither she has returned, his mother hears the ominous report. Pale and trembling, she stands for a moment, then she dashes open the door, only to find herself confronted by her husband. Grafton[Pg 174] Raleigh looks like a ghost as he grasps her hand and leads her into an adjoining room.

And then with many pauses, and between her sobs and broken cries, he tells her the story—the whole ghastly story of how her only son has died.

The sound of footsteps upon the stairs had not been the footsteps of the officers come to drag him away, but some of Richard’s own boon companions who had come in haste to consult him upon some matter of importance to them.

The ghastly remains of Richard Raleigh were buried away out of sight, and poor Lillian, having placed her affairs, together with his dying confession, in the hands of a competent lawyer, was soon installed heiress to her uncle’s fortune. Through her agency the affairs of the Raleighs were set straight, and no one knew how nearly they had come to ruin.

Rosamond recovered—a pale wreck. The first thing that she did was to send for Jack Lyndon and give him his freedom. She afterward married old Arbuthnot, and although she will never entirely recover her mental equilibrium, she leads society in her city to-day. For brain is not a requisite for the average leader of fashion.

Lenore and Cyril live in a handsome house in the most aristocratic quarter of the city, and are so very happy that they are learning to forget the sad past.

Bessie Vernon eloped with Charlie Stuart soon after the return of Lenore to America—even at the very time that she was refusing to acknowledge Lenore as a friend.

“Jack, Jack! look up and say that you forgive me for ever harboring such a dreadful suspicion against you.”

The journalist lifted his head from the writing with which he was busily engaged, and saw standing before him a slim, black-robed figure. Perhaps he thought of another[Pg 175] interview which once took place in the office of the “Thunderer” as he arose and stood before Lillian, pale and still.

“Don’t look at me like that!” she cried; “but say that you forgive me; for oh, Jack, you do not know how I have suffered!”

“I forgive you! Of course I could not do otherwise!” he returned, gravely. “You were under the influence of a wicked man, and—”

“You do care a little for me still, don’t you, Jack?” all pride thrown to the winds now, and her two hands clasping his. She knows his stubborn pride—the pride which will not give way an inch; and she knows that never for one moment does he forget the difference between the poor journalist and the heiress to a million. But Lillian is determined to have no more misunderstandings, so she clings to his hands and looks straight into his eyes.

“Jack, you asked me once to be your wife. I—I have never cared for any one but you! If you—would—ask me again!”

He stoops and gathers her close to his heart, and their eyes meet in a look of deathless affection—perfect trust.

3 Paid For! (Her Ransom).
4 Elaine.
6 On Love’s Altar (A Wasted Love).
11 Better than Life.
17 Married at Sight.
18 Once in a Life.
19 A Life’s Mistake.
20 She Loved Him.
21 The Marquis.
23 ’Twas Love’s Fault (Nance).
24 Queen Kate.
25 His Love So True (Leslie’s Loyalty)
26 In Cupid’s Chains.
27 Just a Girl (A Strange Duchess).
28 The Outcast of the Family.
29 The Mistress of Court Regna (Claire). Illustrated.
30 A Coronet of Shame.
31 An Innocent Girl (Her Heart’s Desire). Illustrated.
32 By Devious Ways (The Girl of His Heart). Illustrated.
33 Story of a Passion. Illustrated.
35 Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold.
37 Heart for Heart.
39 A Modern Juliet.
40 Nell of Shorne Mills.
41 A Heritage of Hate.
42 The Shadow of Her Life.
43 Love, the Tyrant.
44 At Love’s Cost.
45 With All Her Heart.
49 Only a Girl’s Love.
50 Leola Dale’s Fortune.
51 Only One Love.
52 His Guardian Angel.
56 Iris; or, Under the Shadow.

The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent by mail, on receipt of the price, 25 cents each, by the publishers. Address

GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS, Publishers,
P. O. Box 1781. 17 to 27 Vandewater St., New York.

The Age of Reason is undoubtedly one of the ablest and boldest arguments ever put forth against the Bible as being the inspired word of God.

Its author, although born in England, warmly espoused the cause of the patriots in the American Revolution, and wrote and published several pamphlets at that time which renewed the determination of the men of ’76 to conquer or die.

He afterward went to France, and at the time of the French Revolution was a member of the Convention. A motion being made in that body to exclude foreigners, of which there were but himself and one other, and as he was particularly referred to by the mover of the resolution, he conceived that he had but a few days of liberty, and immediately proceeded to write the second part of the “Age of Reason,” the first part having been written some time before. Shortly after it was finished, Thomas Paine was arrested as a foreigner and conveyed to the prison of the Luxembourg. He contrived on his way there to call on Joel Barlow, and put in his hands the manuscript of the second part of the “Age of Reason,” addressed to the protection of the citizens of the United States.

For sale by all newsdealers and booksellers, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of 25 cents, by the publishers.

     Ascanio.
          The Two Dianas.
               The Page of the Duke of Savoy.
                    Marguerite de Valois.
                         Chicot the Jester.
The Forty-five Guardsmen.
     The Three Musketeers.
          Twenty Years After.
               The Vicomte de Bragelonne.
                    Ten Years Later.
        Louise de la Valliere.
        The Man in the Iron Mask.
        The War of Women; or, Nanou.
        The Black Tulip.
        Beau Tancrede; or, The Marriage Verdict.
The Conspirators; or, The Chevalier d’Harmental.
     The Regent’s Daughter.
          Joseph Balsamo.
               The Memoirs of a Physician.
                    The Queen’s Necklace.
     Six Years Later; or, Taking the Bastile.
          The Countess de Charny.
               Andrée de Taverney.
                    The Chevalier de Maison Rouge.
                         The Corsican Brothers.

These books are 12mos, printed on good paper, in large, bold type, and bound in handsome photogravure covers.

The Heiress of Cameron Hall.
Daisy Brooks.
A Struggle for a Heart.
Madolin Rivers.
Junie’s Love-Test.
All for Love of a Fair Face.
Leonie Locke.
Little Rosebud’s Lovers.
Beautiful Ione’s Lover.

These books are 12mos, printed on good paper, in large, bold type, and bound in handsome photogravure covers.

     ELAINE.
          HER RANSOM.
               A WASTED LOVE.
                    LESLIE’S LOYALTY.
                         HER HEART’S DESIRE.

The above works will be sent, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by the publishers. Address

GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS, Publishers.
P. O. Box 1781. 17 to 27 Vandewater St., New York.

Both sacred and profane history are full of so many examples of the fulfillment of dreams, that he must be very skeptical and but little versed in natural science who would refuse to have faith in them.

In this book the interpretation of almost every imaginable dream is given, based on practical experience, by a man who has made this particular branch of research a life study.

This book also contains Napoleon’s Oraculum, which was consulted by him on every occasion. The translator has several times consulted it for his own amusement, and, incredible as it may appear, he found its answers to correspond with truth, as they afterward came to pass.

The Mascot Dream Book is the most complete and serviceable ever issued at the low price of 10 cents.

It has been rendered famous by the success and good fortune invariably attending those who consult its pages.

It also contains a Horoscope and Fortune Teller, and is full of information on many other subjects of like interest.

Of pocket-book size, it can be carried without inconvenience. Its sale thus far has been phenomenal.

Through the Looking-Glass,

NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS.

Juliet Corson’s New Family Cook Book.

The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of the price, by the publishers.

Letter-Writing Made Easy.

Cutting-Out and Dressmaking

Munro’s Dialogues and Speakers.

No. 1. The Funny Fellow’s Dialogues.
No. 2. The Clemence and Donkey Dialogues.
No. 3. Mrs. Smith’s Boarders’ Dialogues.
No. 4. Schoolboys’ Comic Dialogues.
No. 1. Vot I Know ’Bout Gruel Societies Speaker.
No. 2. The John B. Go-off Comic Speaker.
No. 3. My Boy Vilhelm’s Speaker.

HUNTERS’ YARNS.

This book comprises Thrilling Battles with Indians, Terrific Encounters with Serpents and Alligators, Long Swims, Races for Life, etc., etc., as Related by Hunters and their Companions Around the Camp-fire.

The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of the price, by the publishers.

The above books afford a cheap and easy means of learning the Spanish, French, and German languages. They have had a large sale, and have invariably given entire satisfaction.

For sale by all newsdealers, or sent by mail, on receipt of the price, 10 cents each, by the publishers.

THE SEASIDE LIBRARY.

E. About.

Amedee Achard.

Mrs. Leith Adams.

Author of “Addie’s Husband.”

Author of “A Fatal Dower.”

Author of “A Golden Bar.”

Author of “A Great Mistake.”

Author of “For Mother’s Sake.”

Hamilton Aide.

Albert W. Aiken.

George L. Aikin

Gustave Almard.

F. M. Allen.

Grant Allen.

Mrs. Alexander.

Mrs. Alderdice.

Alison.

Hans Christian Andersen.

W. P. Andrews.

F. Anstey.

G. W. Appleton.

Sir Edwin Arnold.

Edwin Lester Arnold.

T. S. Arthur.

Sir Samuel W. Baker.

R. M. Ballantyne.

Honore De Balzac.

S. Baring-Gould.

Frank Barrett.

J. M. Barrie.

Basil.

G. M. Bayne.

Anne Beale.

Alexander Begg.

By the Writer of “Belle’s Letters.”

E. B. Benjamin.

A. Benrimo.

E. F. Benson.

E. Berger.

E. Berthel.

Walter Besant.

M. Betham-Edwards.

Jeanie Gwynne Bettany.

Bjornstjerne Bjornson.

William Black.

R. D. Blackmore.

Isa Blagden.

Edgar Janes Bliss.

Frederick Boyle.

Miss M. E. Braddon.

Annie Bradshaw.

Charlotte M. Braeme, Author of “Dora Thorne.”

Fredrika Bremer.

Charlotte Bronte.

Rhoda Broughton.

Louise de Bruneval.

Robert Buchanan.

Frank T. Bullen.

John Bunyan.

Captain Fred Burnaby.

Aaron Ainsworth Burr.

John Bloundelle-Burton.

Beatrice M. Butt.

E. Lasseter Bynner.

Lord Byron.

E. Fairfax Byrrne.

Mrs. Caddy.

Hall Caine.

Mona Caird.

Ada Cambridge.

Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron.

Lady Colin Campbell.

Rosa Nouchette Carey.

Capt. L. C. Carleton.

William Carleton.

“Carolus.”

Alice Comyne Carr.

Lewis Carroll.

Cervantes.

L. W. Champuey.

Erckmann-Chatrian.

Victor Cherbuliez.

Mary Cholmondeley.

Mrs. C. M. Clarke.

W. M. Clemens.

Captain Clewline.

Mrs. W. K. Clifford.

Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

J. Maclaren Cobban.

John Coleman.

C. R. Coleridge.

Beatrice Collensie.

Mabel Collins.

Wilkie Collins.

M. J. Colquhoun.

Lucy Randall Comfort.

Hugh Conway.

Ralph Connor.

Edward H. Cooper.

J. Fenimore Cooper.

This series contains the most popular books of the day. They are 12mos, printed on good paper, in large, clear type, and bound in handsome photogravure covers.

For sale by all newsdealers and booksellers, or sent, postpaid on receipt of 25 cents each, or five copies for $1.00, by the publishers.

No.	Title	Pages
1467*	A New Lease of Life	264

Heads the List of the Highest-Grade Pianos, and
Are the favorite of the Artist and the refined Musical public.

Every Genuine SOHMER Piano has the following Trade mark stamped upon the sounding-board.

CAUTION.—The buying public will please not confound the genuine S-O-H-M-E-R Piano with one of a similar sounding name of a cheap grade.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LILLIAN'S VOW ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS, PUBLISHERS,	17 to 27 VANDEWATER STREET, NEW YORK.
Copyright, 1898, by George Munro’s Sons.	By Subscription, $10.00 per Annum.

388	Addie’s Husband; or, Through Clouds to Sunshine
504	My Poor Wife
1046	Jessie	167

588	Cherry
1040	Clarissa’s Ordeal	385
1137	Prince Charming	199
1187	Suzanne	227
2055	A Great Mistake	384

1341	The Trappers of Arkansas
1396	The Adventurers
1398	Pirates of the Prairies
1400	Queen of the Savannah
1401	The Buccaneer Chief
1402	The Smuggler Hero
1404	The Rebel Chief
1650	The Trail-Hunter
1653	The Pearl of the Andes
1672	The Insurgent Chief
1688	The Trapper’s Daughter
1690	The Tiger-Slayer
1692	Border Rifles
1700	The Flying Horseman
1701	The Freebooters
1714	The White Scalper
1723	The Guide of the Desert
1732	Last of the Aucas
1734	Missouri Outlaws
1736	Prairie Flower
1740	Indian Scout
1741	Stronghand
1742	Bee-Hunters
1744	Stoneheart
1748	The Gold-Seekers
1752	Indian Chief
1756	Red Track
1761	The Treasure of Pearls
1768	Red River Half-Breed

712	For Maimie’s Sake	295
1221	“The Tents of Shem”	292
1783	The Great Taboo	223
1870*	What’s Bred in the Bone	292
1008*	Dumaresq’s Daughter	296
2017	Miss Cayley’s Adventures	197
2022*	Duchess of Powysland

1	The Marquis	Charles Garvice
2	Beautiful Ione’s Lover	Laura Jean Libbey
3	The Midnight Marriage	Mrs. Sumner Hayden
4	All For Love of a Fair Face	Laura Jean Libbey
5	A Wasted Love	Charles Garvice
6	Daisy Brooks	Laura Jean Libbey
7	Leslie’s Loyalty	Charles Garvice
8	Little Rosebud’s Lovers	Laura Jean Libbey
9	Elaine	Charles Garvice
10	A Struggle for a Heart	Laura Jean Libbey
11	Claire	Charles Garvice
12	Junie’s Love-Test	Laura Jean Libbey
13	Her Heart’s Desire	Charles Garvice
14	Leonie Locke	Laura Jean Libbey
15	Her Ransom	Charles Garvice
16	Madolin Rivers	Laura Jean Libbey
17	A Coronet of Shame	Charles Garvice
18	The Heiress of Cameron Hall	Laura Jean Libbey
19	Woman Against Woman	Mrs. M. A. Holmes
20	The Song of Miriam	Marie Corelli
21	Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold	Charles Garvice
22	His Perfect Trust	Charlotte M. Braeme
23	Addie’s Husband	By the Author of “Jessie”
24	The Heiress of Hilldrop	Charlotte M. Braeme
25	For Another’s Sin	Charlotte M. Braeme
26	Set in Diamonds	Charlotte M. Braeme
27	The World Between Them	Charlotte M. Braeme
28	A Passion Flower	Charlotte M. Braeme
29	A True Magdalen	Charlotte M. Braeme
30	A Woman’s Error	Charlotte M. Braeme
31	Leonie, the Sweet Street Singer	By the Author of “For Mother’s Sake”
32	At War with Herself	Charlotte M. Braeme
33	The Belle of Lynn	Charlotte M. Braeme
34	The Shadow of a Sin	Charlotte M. Braeme
35	Claribel’s Love Story	Charlotte M. Braeme
36	A Woman’s War	Charlotte M. Braeme
37	Lady Audley’s Secret	Miss M. E. Braddon
38	Hilary’s Folly	Charlotte M. Braeme
39	From Gloom to Sunlight	Charlotte M. Braeme
40	A Haunted Life	Charlotte M. Braeme
41	The Mystery of Colde Fell; or, Not Proven	Charlotte M. Braeme
42	A Dark Marriage Morn	Charlotte M. Braeme
43	The Duke’s Secret	Charlotte M. Braeme
44	His Wife’s Judgment	Charlotte M. Braeme
45	A Thorn in Her Heart	Charlotte M. Braeme
46	A Nameless Sin	Charlotte M. Braeme
47	A Mad Love	Charlotte M. Braeme
48	Irene’s Vow	Charlotte M. Braeme
49	Signa’s Sweetheart	Charlotte M. Braeme
50	Not Like Other Girls	Rosa N. Carey

5	The Admiral’s Ward	419
17	The Wooing O’t	392
62	The Executor	473
189	Valerie’s Fate
229	Maid, Wife, or Widow?
286	Which Shall it Be?	346
339	Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid
490	A Second Life	390
564	At Bay	178
794	Beaton’s Bargain	205
797	Look Before You Leap	234
805	The Freres	630
806	Her Dearest Foe	473
814	The Heritage of Langdale	391
815	Ralph Wilton’s Weird
900	By Woman’s Wit	207
997*	Forging the Fetters, and The Australian Aunt	166
1054	Mona’s Choice	300
1057	A Life Interest	431
1189	A Crooked Path	390
1199	A False Scent
1867	Heart Wins	262
1459	A Woman’s Heart	394
1571	Blind Fate	335
2158	What Gold Can Not Buy

59	Vice Versâ	221
225	The Giant’s Robe	280
503	The Tinted Venus. A Farcical Romance
819	A Fallen Idol	228
616	The Black Poodle, and Other Tales	239

1337*	Woman’s Trials	216
1636	The Two Wives	184
1688*	Married Life	214
1640	Ways of Providence	215
1641*	Home Scenes	216
1644*	Stories for Parents	215
1649*	Seed-Time and Harvest	216
1652*	Words for the Wise	215
1654*	Stories for Young Housekeepers	212
1657*	Lessons In Life	215
1658*	Off-Hand Sketches	216
1660	The Tried and the Tempted	212
2164	Ten Nights in a Bar-room and What I Saw There

267	Rifle and Hound in Ceylon
538	Eight Years’ Wanderings in Ceylon	205
1502	Cast Up by the Sea	410

89	The Red Eric	178
95	The Fire Brigade	170
96	Erling the Bold	184
772	Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader	259
1514	Deep Down	420

776	Père Goriot	212
1128	Cousin Pons	297
1318	The Vendetta	254
2189	Shorter Stories	186
2231	The Chouans	290

787	Court Royal	406
878	Little Tu’penny
1122*	Eve	283
1201*	Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes	270
1697*	Red Spider	222
1711	The Pennycomequicke	448
1763	John Herring	445
1779*	Armiuell	519
1821*	Urith	438

986	The Great Hesper
1138	A Recoiling Vengeance
1245*	Fettered for Life	313
1461	Smuggler’s Secret
1611	Between Life and Death	292
1750	Lieutenant Barnabas	292

1896	My Lady Nicotine	206
1977	Better Dead
2099	Auld Licht Idylls
2100	A Window in Thrums
2101	When a Man’s Single	162
2167	A Tillyloss Scandal	164

1346	A Terrible Legacy	304
2004	Frozen Hearts

344*	“The Wearing of the Green”	275
585*	A Drawn Game	304

188	Idonea	239
199*	The Fisher Village

1706*	Jim, the Parson	244
1720*	Our Roman Palace	360

97	All in a Garden Fair	271
137	Uncle Jack
140	A Glorious Fortune
146*	Love Finds the Way, and Other Stories. By Besant and Rice
230	Dorothy Forster	283
324	In Luck at Last
541	Uncle Jack
651*	“Self or Bearer”
882	Children of Gibeon	459
904	The Holy Rose
906	The World Went Very Well Then	366
980	To Call Her Mine	164
1055	Katharine Regina
1065*	Herr Paulus: His Rise, His Greatness, and His Fall	278
1143*	The Inner House	183
1151*	For Faith and Freedom	356
1240*	The Bell of St. Paul’s	352
1247	The Lament of Dives	244
1378	They Were Married. By Walter Besant and Jas. Rice	189
1413	Armorel of Lyonesse	401
1462	Let Nothing You Dismay
1530	When the Ship Comes Home. By Besant and Rice
1655	The Demoniac	347
1861	St. Katherine’s by the Tower	377

273	Love and Mirage; or, The Waiting on an Island
579*	The Flower of Doom, and Other Stories
594*	Doctor Jacob	207
1023*	Next of Kin—Wanted	220
1407*	The Parting of the Ways	390
1500*	Disarmed	203
1543*	For One and the World	340
1627*	A Romance of the Wire	192

1	Yolande	329
8	Shandon Bells	274
21	Sunrise: A Story of These Times	324
23	A Princess of Thule	334
39	In Silk Attire	316
44	Macleod of Dare	294
49	That Beautiful Wretch	215
50	The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton	372
70	White Wings: A Yachting Romance	261
78	Madcap Violet	310
81	A Daughter of Heth	336
124	Three Feathers	328
125	The Monarch of Mincing Lane	271
126	Killmeny	240
138	Green Pastures and Piccadilly	391
265	Judith Shakespeare: Her Love Affairs and Other Adventures	260
472	The Wise Women of Inverness
627	White Heather	337
898	Romeo and Juliet: A Tale of Two Young Fools	162
962	Sabina Zembra	454
1096	The Strange Adventures of a House-Boat	335
1132	In Far Lochaber	287
1227	The Penance of John Logan
1259	Nanciebel: A Tale of Stratford-on-Avon
1268	Prince Fortunatus	421
1389	Oliver Goldsmith
1394	The Four Macnicols, and Other Tales
1426	An Adventure in Thule
1505	Lady Silverdale’s Sweetheart
1506	Mr. Pisistratus Brown, M. P.
1725	Stand Fast, Craig-Royston!	408
1892	Donald Ross of Heimra	367

67	Lorna Doone	454
427	The Remarkable History of Sir Thomas Upmore, Bart., M. P.	210
615	Mary Anerley	488
625	Erema; or, My Father’s Sin	396
629	Cripps, the Carrier	333
630	Cradock Nowell	568
631	Christowell	458
632	Clara Vaughan	489
633	The Maid of Sker	507
636	Alice Lorraine	494
926	Springhaven
1267	Kit and Kitty	419

35	Lady Audley’s Secret	279
56	Phantom Fortune	464
74	Aurora Floyd	333
110	Under the Red Flag
153	The Golden Calf	297
204	Vixen	328
211	The Octoroon	160
234	Barbara; or, Splendid Misery	256
263	An Ishmaelite	338
315	The Mistletoe Bough. Christmas, 1884. Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon	197
434	Wyllard’s Weird	312
478	Diavola	233
480	Married in Haste. Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon	240
487	Put to the Test. Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon	365
488	Joshua Haggard’s Daughter	438
489	Rupert Godwin	369
495	Mount Royal	431
496	Only a Woman. Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon	390
497	The Lady’s Mile	425
498	Only a Clod	403
499	The Cloven Foot	416
511	A Strange World	429
515	Sir Jasper’s Tenant	416
524	Strangers and Pilgrims	473
529	The Doctor’s Wife	431
542	Fenton’s Quest	240
544	Cut by the County; or, Grace Darnel	163
548	A Fatal Marriage, and The Shadow in the Corner
549	Dudley Carleon; or, The Brother’s Secret, and George Caulfield’s Journey
552	Hostages to Fortune	409
553	Birds of Prey	414
554	Charlotte’s Inheritance. (Sequel to “Birds of Prey”)	397
557	To the Bitter End	459
559	Taken at the Flood	490
560	Asphodel	468
561	Just as I am; or, A Living Lie	437
567	Dead Men’s Shoes	459
570	John Marchmont’s Legacy	498
618	The Mistletoe Bough. Christmas, 1885. Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon	257
840*	One Thing Needful; or, The Penalty of Fate	281
881	Mohawks	515
890*	The Mistletoe Bough. Christmas, 1886. Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon	252
943	Weavers and Weft; or, “Love that Hath Us in His Net”	206
947	Publicans and Sinners; or, Lucius Davoren
1036	Like and Unlike	402
1098	The Fatal Three	357
1211	The Day Will Come	415
1411	Whose Was the Hand?	377
1664*	Dead Sea Fruit	348
1893	The World, Flesh and the Devil	472
1933	Nobody’s Daughter. Sequel to “Diavola”	265

19	Her Mother’s Sin; or, A Bright Wedding Day	174
51	Dora Thorne	320
54	A Broken Wedding-Ring	336
68	A Queen Amongst Women
69	Madolin’s Lover; or, The Love that Lived	329
78	Redeemed by Love; or, Love’s Victory; or, Love Works Wonders	240
76	Wife in Name Only; or, A Broken Heart	287
79	Wedded and Parted
92	Lord Lynne’s Choice	197
148	Thorns and Orange-Blossoms	319
151	The Ducie Diamonds
155	Lady Muriel’s Secret	185
156	“For a Dream’s Sake”	189
174	Under a Ban	270
190	Romance of a Black Veil	160
194	“So Near, and Yet So Far!”
220	Which Loved Him Best? or, Two Fair Women	184
237	Repented at Leisure	283
244	A Great Mistake	384
246	A Fatal Dower	249
249	“Prince Charlie’s Daughter;” or, The Cost of Her Love	191
250	Sunshine and Roses; or, Diana’s Discipline	244
254	The Wife’s Secret, and Fair but False
273	For Life and Love
283	The Sin of a Lifetime; or, Vivien’s Atonement	201
285	The Gambler’s Wife	309
291	Love’s Warfare	181
292	A Golden Heart	184
296	A Rose in Thorns	183
299	The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride from the Sea
300	A Gilded Sin
303	Ingledew House, and More Bitter than Death
304	In Cupid’s Net
305	A Dead Heart, and Lady Gwendoline’s Dream
306	A Golden Dawn, and Lover for a Day
307	Two Kisses, and Like no Other Love
308	Beyond Pardon	268
322	A Woman’s Love-Story	173
328	A Willful Maid	210
335	The White Witch	294
352	At Any Cost
411	A Bitter Atonement	290
430	A Bitter Reckoning
433	My Sister Kate
459	A Woman’s Temptation	277
460	Under a Shadow	245
461	His Wedded Wife	300
465	The Earl’s Atonement	254
466	Between Two Loves	220
467	A Struggle for a Ring	245
469	Lady Damer’s Secret	256
470	Evelyn’s Folly	268
471	Thrown on the World	223
476	Between Two Sins; or, Married in Haste
516	Put Asunder; or, Lady Castlemaine’s Divorce	261
518	The Hidden Sin	312
519	James Gordon’s Wife	272
547	A Coquette’s Conquest	304
576	Her Martyrdom	289
626	A Fair Mystery; or, The Perils of Beauty	456
628	Wedded Hands	358
677	Griselda	234
741	The Heiress of Hilldrop; or, The Romance of a Young Girl	285
745	For Another’s Sin; or, A Struggle for Love	313
755	Margery Dew	226
759	In Shallow Waters	202
778	Society’s Verdict	319
792	Set in Diamonds	277
807	If Love Be Love	257
821	The World Between Them	368
822	A Passion Flower	352
829	The Actor’s Ward	315
853	A True Magdalen; or, One False Step	364
854	A Woman’s Error	286
908	A Willful Young Woman	283
922	Marjorie	346
923	At War With Herself	258
924	’Twixt Smile and Tear	391
927	Sweet Cymbeline	358
928	The False Vow; or, Hilda; or, Lady Hutton’s Ward	261
928	Hilda; or, The False Vow; or, Lady Hutton’s Ward	261
929	The Belle of Lynn; or, The Miller’s Daughter	263
931	Lady Diana’s Pride; or, One Against Many	177
933	A Hidden Terror	264
948	The Shadow of a Sin	217
949	Claribel’s Love Story; or, Love’s Hidden Depths	296
952	A Woman’s War	319
953	Hilary’s Folly; or, Her Marriage Vow	312
955	From Gloom to Sunlight; or, From Out the Gloom	328
958	A Haunted Life; or, Her Terrible Sin	288
964	A Struggle for the Right	245
967	Bonnie Doon
968	Blossom and Fruit; or, Madame’s Ward	313
969	The Mystery of Colde Fell; or, Not Proven	269
973	The Squire’s Darling	160
975	A Dark Marriage Morn	311
978	Her Second Love	198
982	The Duke’s Secret	335
985	On Her Wedding Morn, and The Mystery of the Holly-Tree	178
988	The Shattered Idol, and Letty Leigh	191
990	The Earl’s Error, and Arnold’s Promise
995	An Unnatural Bondage, and That Beautiful Lady	164
1006	His Wife’s Judgment	302
1008	A Thorn in Her Heart	256
1010	Golden Gates	256
1012	A Nameless Sin	229
1014	A Mad Love	270
1031	Irene’s Vow	265
1052	Signa’s Sweetheart	361
1091	A Modern Cinderella
1134	Lord Elesmere’s Wife	401
1155	Lured Away; or, The Story of a Wedding-Ring, and The Heiress of Arne	160
1179	Beauty’s Marriage
1185	A Fiery Ordeal	206
1186	Guelda	219
1195	Dumaresq’s Temptation	324
1285	Jenny	187
1291	The Star of Love	212
1328	Lord Lisle’s Daughter
1338	A Woman’s Vengeance	215
1343	Dream Faces	296
1373	The Story of an Error	299
1415	Weaker than a Woman	289
1444	The Queen of the County	386
1628	Love Works Wonders; or, Love’s Victory; or, Redeemed by Love	270
1951	The Mystery of Woodleigh Grange
2010	Her Only Sin
2011	A Fatal Wedding	160
2012	A Bright Wedding-Day; or, Her Mother’s Sin	174
2013	One Against Many; or, Lady Diana’s Pride	177
2014	One False Step; or, A True Magdalen	361
2015	Two Fair Women; or, Which Loved Him Best?	184
2053	The Love that Lived; or, Madolin’s Lover	329
2068	Lady Latimer’s Escape	236
2188	His Perfect Trust	338

86	Belinda	261
101	Second Thoughts	253
227	Nancy	234
645	Mrs. Smith of Longmains
758	“Good-bye, Sweetheart!”	344
765	Not Wisely, But Too Well	314
767	Joan	362
768	Red as a Rose is She	355
769	Cometh Up as a Flower	278
862	Betty’s Visions
894	Doctor Cupid	319
1599	Alas!	387

145	“Storm-Beaten:” God and The Man	208
154*	Annan Water	197
181*	The New Abelard	176
268	The Martyrdom of Madeline
398*	Matt
468*	The Shadow of the Sword	282
646*	The Master of the Mine	189
892	That Winter Night; or, Love’s Victory
1074*	Stormy Waters	238
1104*	The Heir of Linne	185
1350	Love Me Forever
1455*	The Moment After

330*	“Our Radicals”
375	A Ride to Khiva	173
384	On Horseback Through Asia Minor	290

445	The Shadow of a Crime	242
520	She’s All the World to Me
1234	The Deemster	343
1255	The Bondman	357
2079	A Son of Hagar	354

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lillian's vow

Lillian’s Vow

THE SWEETHEART SERIES.

LILLIAN’S VOW;

Practical Palmistry.

LILLIAN’S VOW.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CHAPTER XXX.

Age of Reason.

TWENTY-FIVE Masterpieces of Dumas

LAURA JEAN LIBBEY’S

Five Great Books by Charles Garvice.

THE LUCKY DREAM BOOK,

“Look it up in the Dream Book.”

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland