The Mystery Of Suicide Place - free ebook by Alex. McVeigh Miller

THE MYSTERY of SUICIDE PLACE

By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller HART SERIES No. 40 (Printed in the United States of America) PUBLISHED BY THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY Cleveland , U. S. A....

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CHAPTER I. “IF ONLY——”

When the beautiful Miss Maybelle Maury, of Mount Vernon, New York, was returning in October, 1894, from her tour of Europe with her chaperon, Mrs. Vere de Vere, a New York society leader, she was introduced by the latter to our hero, handsome young St. George Beresford, the only son of a New York millionaire. Life on shipboard offers many temptations to flirtation, and the fascinating youth did not show himself indifferent to the challenge that Maybelle’s dark, languishing eyes immediately flash

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CHAPTER II. “HEIRESS OF FATE.”

Otho Maury’s tone was light and contemptuous, but at heart he was furious. He had a penchant for Florence Fane himself, and dreaded a rival in this man whose face had paled at the sight of her, and whose voice had trembled as he asked her name—ay, whose very heart shone in his splendid eyes as he leaned over the gate watching the flying wheel and its graceful rider like one in a dream—a dream of love, for his pulse beat fast, his heart leaped wildly, his very soul was stirred within him in stran

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CHAPTER III. A DASTARDLY PLOT.

The first moment that Maybelle was alone with Otho she clung to his arm, whispering, sorrowfully: “Otho, I am wretched! Did you mean what you said this morning—that St. George admired that girl?” “Yes, I meant it, every word, Maybelle, for it is true, curse the luck! and unless we carry things with a high hand, he is lost to you forever. In fact, I never saw a fellow so hard hit in all my life. He actually turned white to the lips with emotion, and his voice was hoarse and strange as he demanded

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CHAPTER IV. WHY DID SHE DO IT?

The next morning dawned gloriously, and in due time the carriages reached the picnic-grounds—just a mile past Suicide Place—a picturesque grove on the banks of a river. There was a pavilion and music for dancing, with every device for pleasure. And Floy was there with the rest, charming in a white duck suit and big hat, self-possessed as a young princess, and not one whit abashed when Otho led her to his party, and said, graciously: “You know my sister Maybelle, don’t you? She has been away a gr

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CHAPTER V. THE REASON WHY.

Pretty Floy’s startling, unexpected, and terrible action produced the effect of a thunder-clap on the gay and thoughtless crowd of young people who witnessed it. A moment of blank, awed silence ensued, then every one seemed to join in a cry of alarm and dismay as they pressed forward to the banks and watched the eddying circles of water over the deep and dangerous spot where that lovely form had disappeared from view. They watched eagerly for the golden head to reappear. Meanwhile, Otho Maury sa

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CHAPTER VI. A DREAM OF ROSES.

Merry little Floy went dancing like a sunbeam through the dark oak grove, and sat down to rest on the porch before she entered the house for her night’s vigil. She rested there while the full moon rose over the tree-tops, silvering the scene with an unearthly light, and throwing fantastic leaf-shadows on the short green grass. It was like an enchanted palace, so calm, so quiet, undisturbed by any sound save the plaintive call of a whip-poor-will away off in the dim, silent woods. She mused a lit

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CHAPTER VII. AT THE DREAD HOUR OF MIDNIGHT.

Half an hour passed by slowly. The storm was over. The lightning, thunder, and rain had ceased, and the moon was coming out from the black wrack of clouds where she had hidden her glory. Her silver light shone again upon the sleeping world, and flashed into the parlor window that Floy had opened before she left the room half an hour ago. In the sheen of the moonlight, the staring eyes of the portraits on the wall seemed to be watching eagerly for their descendant to reappear. The hall door opene

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CHAPTER VIII. “FROM THAT SPOT BY HORROR HAUNTED.”

Floy watched the punishment of Otho Maury with that boundless admiration a woman always feels for manly strength and power. She thought that St. George Beresford was the grandest, bravest, most beautiful hero in the world, and her heart swelled with gratitude to him for his manly defense of a helpless girl. But she was frightened, too, when she saw her persecutor’s body flying through the air, and she cried out, shudderingly: “Oh, you have killed the wretch!” But her preserver answered, coolly:

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CHAPTER IX. “OH! THOSE HAPPY MOMENTS SPENT TOGETHER!”

Beresford led his trembling young companion out to the carriage that waited impatiently at the gates, the horses fretting and the driver swearing under his breath. In fact, the young man had been charged a heavy sum for this service, the driver sharing to the full the common terror of Suicide Place. So it was with a sigh of relief that he received from Floy the directions where to drive, after which she was handed into the carriage by her escort. “With your permission I will see you safely home,

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CHAPTER X. “SLEEPING, I DREAMED, LOVE!”

“I dreamed of you,” repeated Beresford, bending lower over the girl until her fragrant breath floated up to him, and the magnetism of her nearness enveloped him in an atmosphere of passionate bliss. “I dreamed, little Floy, that you and I were alone together, walking in the most beautiful rose garden in the world.” “Oh!” cried Floy, with a delicious start, throwing up her little hands. Beresford caught one of them in his and held it tenderly, as if it had been a little trembling white bird, as h

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CHAPTER XI. PLIGHTED.

What Floy would have answered to her lover’s ardent question was lost in the rumble and noise of the carriage wheels as the driver reined up his horses in front of Bird’s Nest Cottage, and loudly announced: “Here we are!” Beresford handed Floy out, and walked through the cottage gate up to the door with her, whispering under the leafy shade of the honeysuckle vines a tremulous question: “Will you give me love for love, darling Floy? Will you marry me?” She tried to draw away the hand he held, mu

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CHAPTER XII. “WHEN I AM MARRIED!” CRIED FLOY.

Pretty soon John Banks, in an old frayed dressing-gown, opened the door himself, exclaiming: “I thought you were going to stay all night with the girls, dearie!” “I changed my mind,” she answered, softly; then threw her arms around his neck, laughing, and whispering: “I’m sorry I disturbed your nap, you dear old darling, but I’ll creep softly up to my room, and you can go to sleep again directly, can’t you?” “Yes, I hope so; but I’ve not slept well to-night. My head aches a little. Maybe it will

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CHAPTER XIII. IN THE MESHES OF HER HUNGRY FATE.

Floy stood scared and trembling at the head of the stairs, trying to make out what was going on below. She presently recognized that it was the voice of Mrs. Banks, uplifted in those grievous cries, and a conviction of the truth rushed over her mind—something terrible had happened to John Banks. The tender-hearted wife had always been nervous over his trade of house-builder—always forebode an accident. Tears rushed blindingly to Floy’s sweet blue eyes, and her heart sunk heavily as she thought:

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CHAPTER XIV. THROWN ON THE WORLD.

Mrs. Banks was wretched at the thought of being parted from Floy, whom she loved as dearly as if she had been her own child. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she cried piteously: “Oh, Miss Maybelle, how can I let my child go into that great wicked city of New York, with all its terrible temptations to a poor girl who has to earn her bread! Couldn’t I go, too, and watch over her young life?” “How could you go? Floy will only earn five dollars a week, and that will barely provide her board, lodging,

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CHAPTER XV. “AS PROUD AND AS PRETTY AS A PRINCESS.”

Floy was taken to Mr. Maury’s palatial store, on one of the most prosperous business thoroughfares of New York, and given a position behind the handkerchief counter. Her genial, sunny nature, always looking at the bright side of everything, soon attracted admiring friends among her fellow employés, and made her popular with the elegant customers who patronized the well-known importing house. She was so frank, so pretty, so engaging that it was a pleasure to be waited on by such a girl, who, whil

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CHAPTER XVI. A CRUEL PERSECUTION.

Floy went home that evening from the store with a blithe heart. The meeting with St. George Beresford’s mother had been a delight to the innocent girl. The great lady’s graciousness had thrilled her with hope. She remembered how anxiously her lover had admitted that he must conciliate his little world before his marriage. It seemed to her simple mind that Mrs. Beresford had been won over already. “She told me I was pretty—that she was looking at me as if I had been a picture; she can not be angr

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CHAPTER XVII. THE FAIR DEAD FACE HE HAD LOVED SO WELL.

“My God, the girl will be instantly killed!” groaned Otho Maury, with blanched lips, and staggering like a drunken man as he reeled backwards to the door. For even in the horror and remorse of the moment, knowing that he had caused Floy’s death as certainly as though he had plunged a dagger in her heart, a swift, prudential consideration restrained him from following his first impulse to rush to the window and watch the doomed girl’s terrible plunge to destruction. “I must not be suspected of ha

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CHAPTER XVIII. “CUPID.”

Otho Maury joined the theater party to see “Trilby,” and devoted himself to the beautiful brown-eyed Alva Beresford, who looked like a young princess, and accepted his devotion with the careless patronage of one who knows that homage is her due. It was her first meeting with Otho, and she read him at sight, and despised him accordingly, perhaps fathoming his designs on her fortune as she had already fathomed Maybelle’s efforts to insnare St. George. The Beresfords tolerated Maybelle without admi

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CHAPTER XIX. THE BERESFORD PRIDE.

In the letter that Alva Beresford treated as a merry jest, St. George had poured out the tenderness of a love-freighted heart to his mother. When he parted from Floy that night beneath the vines on the cottage porch and hurried away to perform the mission on which he was sent across the sea, his heart was full of her grace and beauty, and every hour seemed leaden-winged that kept him from her side. “How beautiful she is, how far above all others in her ineffable grace and charm!” he said to hims

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CHAPTER XX. ALVA’S DISAPPOINTMENT.

The day after the theater party Miss Beresford stood alone in her beautiful studio in a sunny wing thrown out at the side of the mansion, and gazed meditatively at her latest work. She was no mean artist, this queenly heiress, for having much talent in the beginning, she had improved upon it by spending several years in Paris under the best masters. She threw all her soul into her work, and delighted in every successful effort she made. Her most ambitious work, and one that had occupied much tim

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CHAPTER XXI. “WHERE IS SHE NOW?”

“Alva!” cried Mrs. Beresford, gazing at her daughter in consternation. She grew pale and shuddered as she spoke, for the thought of the lovely girl’s terrible accident touched her deeply. “Is it not a terrible disappointment?” cried Alva. “Perhaps I shall never find her now, and my ‘Cupid’ will never be finished.” “But surely the girl will be found again!” Mrs. Beresford cried, consolingly; but Alva shook her head. “I fear not, for her disappearance was so strange. Listen, mamma: they took her t

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CHAPTER XXII. “OH, MY SON, MY SON!”

The clever detective was not the only person who was furtively engaged in an eager search for the missing girl. Otho Maury, although he had written falsely to St. George Beresford that Floy was dead, had learned already, to his dismay, of her strange disappearance. He saw that matters were more complicated than ever. Floy was alive, he felt sure, and he foreboded that she would be turning up at some inopportune moment in Maybelle’s path, and blocking her way to success with Beresford. He guessed

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CHAPTER XXIII. “YOU WICKED, WICKED GIRL!” CRIED THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR.

Otho Maury received no answer to the letter he so artfully sent to St. George Beresford. But he had not expected a reply. He knew that the blow must fall with too crushing a weight on the lover’s heart to admit of comment, and he knew also that Beresford would never forgive him for his offense against Floy. He gave up the quest for the missing girl after two weeks, and went back to Mount Vernon distracted with doubt and fear. “I am all at sea,” he confessed, frankly, to Maybelle, who grew pale w

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CHAPTER XXIV. “A ROYAL ROAD TO FORTUNE.”

“I am sorry now that I did not follow my first impulse and burn those hateful letters!” cried Maybelle regretfully. “How many were there?” asked her brother, grimly. “Seven in all. He must have written to her every day until he received your letter that she was dead. And such letters! fully of the silliest love. Pah!” cried the girl, who despised the letters because they were written to her rival. If they had been intended for her—jealous, envious Maybelle—she would have wished them framed in go

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CHAPTER XXV. HOW THOSE TENDER LETTERS TO ANOTHER MUST HAVE STABBED MAYBELLE’S HEART!

“Oh, my darling, a whole life-time of devotion shall teach you the strength of my love. Your life with me, my bonny bride, shall be a dream of bliss.” Floy’s big, starry-blue eyes glowed like blue jewels in the dusk as she read aloud the tender words of her lover’s letter. Then she pressed her rosy lips to the page as fondly as though it had been the handsome face of her absent love. “How he loves me, my noble, splendid, beautiful, dark-eyed lover! He has chosen me, simple little Floy, poor and

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CHAPTER XXVI. “I WILL SELL MY LIFE AND HONOR DEARLY!” CRIED THE MADDENED GIRL.

The room where Floy sat had been her mother’s bedchamber. It was a large, handsome apartment, with stenciled walls and deep mahogany wainscoting after the old style, and the dark, massive furniture was of the richest mahogany. The dark polished floor was covered with rich rugs from Persia, and a magnificent full-length mirror between the two windows had reflected many a beautiful face and form of Floy’s ancestors. They had been handsome people, the Nellests, but Floy’s beauty was of quite a diff

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CHAPTER XXVII. AT BAY.

As if in answer to her defiance, a stealthy hand turned the knob, the door swung lightly back, and the form of a man stood hesitating on the threshold. “Otho Maury!” The cry shrilled over her lips in a strangled gasp of loathing—not fear, for with that weapon in her hand she felt strong to defy the villain. He started, and stood looking at her with dazed eyes. He had searched the whole house over by the aid of a dark lantern, and almost began to despair of success, when he opened this last door.

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CHAPTER XXVIII. ANOTHER INTRUDER.

Still grasping the bloody weapon, Floy looked down in terror at the body of her bleeding victim. “Oh-h-h! I have killed the mean coward, but—I couldn’t help it—I had to do it!” she exclaimed, bursting into hysterical sobs. “Bravo, miss, that was a brave deed! He deserved death; but if you had waited a minute longer, I would have killed him for you myself!” exclaimed an admiring voice, and a man who had been watching and listening in the corridor outside came hastily into the room. He was a stran

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CHAPTER XXIX. “OH, HOW BLEST I AM!” CRIED FLOY.

Floy looked at him inquiringly, and he said: “Will you come with me to-night to New York and the lady who wants you so much, or shall you go to Mrs. Banks?” “Not to her, though I love her dearly; for, oh! there is danger for me in her vicinity, since it is the home of Otho Maury, also. No; I must seek another hiding-place. Oh, sir, you look at me strangely! You do not understand my trouble, and I can not explain it, for—for—I have a secret!” cried Floy, incoherently. She looked down at Otho’s fa

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CHAPTER XXX. “’TIS HOME WHERE’ER THE HEART IS.”

“I can no longer wonder at my mother’s enthusiasm,” thought Alva Beresford, on first beholding Floy. It was not yet midnight when Floyd Landon arrived at the Fifth Avenue mansion with his charge. He knew that it was late to intrude, but under the peculiar circumstances of the case, he deemed it best to waive ceremony and go at once to the house. His arrival was timely, for Miss Beresford was just leaving her carriage on returning from a wedding-reception. She was in magnificent evening-dress, an

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CHAPTER XXXI. NEAR TO DEATH.

Alva painted unweariedly for several hours, and declared herself charmed with her lovely, patient model. Floy was enthusiastic, too. She declared that she could not be grateful enough to Miss Beresford for putting her face in that enchanting picture. “Only think!” she cried. “When I am dead and gone—when the light has faded from my eyes—when this form of mine is dust in a forgotten grave—this beauty will live on upon the deathless canvas, and some one may say of me: ‘She was so pretty, this litt

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CHAPTER XXXII. “THE SILENCE OF A BROKEN HEART.”

Floy leaned forward and clutched Alva’s arm with icy fingers. “Oh, for God’s sake, tell me what you mean!” she faltered, imploringly. “Why, what is it to you, child?” exclaimed Alva, startled out of herself by Floy’s emotion. “Oh, nothing, nothing; pardon me, Miss Beresford. But I was so sorry for you and for him , for—for you spoke of a broken heart,” sobbed Floy, drawing back in dismay. Miss Beresford was silent one moment, then she reached out and caressed Floy’s golden head with one jeweled

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CHAPTER XXXIII. PRIDE BROUGHT LOW.

St. George Beresford’s precautions that his parents should not know of his illness were useless. It was not probable that the son of an American millionaire could fall ill in London without the knowledge of the ubiquitous reporters for the American newspapers. So the first news the Beresfords had of their son’s illness was brought through a special to a New York daily paper. Something seemed to snap like a too hardly strained cord in the mother’s heart when she read the paragraph and she fell in

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CHAPTER XXXIV. TOO LATE!

Oh, those days and nights of sorrow and suspense! The tortured parents would never forget them. The memory of their harshness was a lash to conscience that never ceased to sting. In the weary nightly vigils, when they hung over the sufferer’s bedside, the mother prayed, unceasingly: “Oh, God, give me back my boy, that I may atone!” All her pride was brought low. If she could have known where to find the mysterious girl her son loved, she would have dragged her by force, if necessary, to her son’

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CHAPTER XXXV. “HE IS FICKLE AND FALSE—MY LOVER WHOM I TRUSTED SO FONDLY!—HOW CAN I BEAR THIS PAIN AND LIVE?”

Mr. Beresford, when he saw himself discovered, advanced to the bedside. He was a tall, portly gentleman, with kind brown eyes and a pleasant face that beamed with joy as he said: “A letter from Alva at last!” His wife sunk back in her chair and eagerly perused it. Then she handed it to her husband, and turned again to her son. “I suppose Alva is at Newport?” he said, trying to bring his thoughts back from the painful theme that held them—the loss of his darling. But it was hard to remember anyth

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CHAPTER XXXVI. “NOT TILL LOVE COMES.”

But we must digress a short while from the main points of our story to note what became of our villain, Otho Maury, after Floyd Landon and our heroine left him unconscious on the floor, to recover at his leisure from his long swoon. Never was a villain assured of success in a nefarious design more cleverly checkmated. In a few minutes after their departure, Otho revived, and lifted his head in wonder at his position. A darting pain in his wounded neck recalled him sharply to a sense of all that

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CHAPTER XXXVII. SEARCHING IN VAIN.

It was a week before Otho could mingle with the world again in his search for the brave girl who had so strangely eluded him. And then her disappearance became as strange as it had seemed the first time. Naturally it did not once occur to him that Floy had found a powerful protector in the person of Miss Beresford. The splendid house on Fifth Avenue, where the heiress lived, was the last one he would have thought of searching for the missing girl. Yet in that splendid casket Floy, like some beau

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CHAPTER XXXVIII. A BOWER OF ROSES.

So, while Floy’s enemy sought her all in vain, the day of her lover’s return came at last. It was two months now since their parting at the cottage door, in the May moonlight, under the drooping vines that shaded the porch—two months since that last kiss of love so true and warm and tender. The burning heats of July held the world in their hot grasp, and the little spring flowers were faded and gone, as were the tender hopes of Floy’s heart. But all that last day she busied herself, flitting hit

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CHAPTER XXXIX. A LITTLE HAND.

Alva was right about the travelers being weary. They retired early to their rooms that evening, St. George first of all. “How sweet, how beautiful!” he cried, when the odor of the roses greeted him from every side. He went up to the table, where a half-blown bud in a slender crystal vase charmed him with its crimson beauty. “What a rich, warm, velvety scarlet rose—the flower of love!” he exclaimed; and pressed his lips on the curling petals. In that instant a memory of Floy, his lost young love,

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CHAPTER XL. A STARTLING REVELATION.

Alva looked intently at her brother, and she saw that he was struggling with deep emotion. It pleased her to see that her picture could affect him so deeply. “Is it not beautiful—the face of Cupid? Can you imagine anything living so perfectly beautiful?” she repeated. Slowly, without taking his eyes from the lovely face, St. George replied, dreamily: “Yes, I can imagine it, for I knew the original in all her living beauty, the fairest among women. Oh! my sister, how exquisitely you have reproduc

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CHAPTER XLI. JOY AND SORROW.

St. George looked up at his mother, and it angered him to see the look of joy on her face. “She is so glad—so glad of my darling’s death that she has not the grace to hide it, to feign a sympathy she can not feel,” he thought, miserably. “Answer me, dear,” she persisted, grasping his arm in her excitement. He turned his heavy eyes on her face, and said, reproachfully: “You need not look so glad that she is dead, mother; my grief is bitter enough without that. Well, it was Otho Maury, if you wish

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CHAPTER XLII. A YOUNG GIRL’S PRIDE.

Alva took the letter from Honora amid cries of dismay from them all. She broke the seal, and as she opened the letter, a flashing diamond ring fell out into her hand from the closely written sheet. “It is the ring I gave her when we became engaged,” exclaimed St. George, taking it and kissing it in memory of that night, his heart thrilling with the memory of her beauty and sweetness as he kissed her good-bye beneath the drooping vines. Alva read aloud, knowing how impatient they would be to hear

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CHAPTER XLIII. MAYBELLE WRITES A LETTER.

They sent for the detective and confided the whole story to him, knowing that he was both clever and trustworthy. Mr. Landon was pleased when he heard that beautiful Floy was St. George’s chosen bride, and he was confident that he could find her again. But he did not judge it expedient to keep his promise to Floy any longer—the promise to shield Otho Maury. So he said to the anxious lover: “You have a dangerous rival.” “You mean Otho Maury?” “Yes.” “Floy hates the villain.” “Yes, and he knows it

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CHAPTER XLIV. BUT ONE CHANCE IN A HUNDRED.

But we must turn our attention from other interests for awhile to follow the fortunes of our unhappy heroine, lovely Floy. How sadly her fortunes had altered since we first saw her flashing through the streets of Mount Vernon on her bicycle, a vision of beauty, light of heart, and careless as a joyous little humming-bird! Love and sorrow had come to her as it comes to many, hand in hand, saddening her heart and changing her life. Her life in those weeks with Alva had been widened in its scope. T

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CHAPTER XLV. “HOPE DEFERRED MAKETH THE HEART SICK.”

Ah, how slowly pass the days and weeks when parted from one we love! Beresford knew all the meaning of the poet’s plaint as the slow days and nights dragged their weary lengths along without tidings of Floy. For, though a week had passed away, Landon had no encouraging news to give. The suspense began to tell on the weakened nerves of the impatient lover, and his improvement became less marked as hope and expectation became dulled in his heart. But in vain they urged him to desert the hot city f

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CHAPTER XLVI. “THE HOUSE IS HAUNTED.”

Beresford could find no words in which to express his surprise and chagrin. He could only stare, speechlessly, at the detective waiting for an explanation. He saw that Landon looked pale and nervous. “You are ill!” he exclaimed, at last, as if that explained all. “No, I am not ill, but—I—have had—a great shock—so that I can not bring myself to go on with the search for Miss Fane. You must employ some one else.” “But who can succeed where you have failed, Landon? You, the bravest, cleverest detec

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CHAPTER XLVII. “LIFE IS SO SAD!” CRIED FLOY.

Floyd Landon’s nerves were so shaken by his experiences at Suicide Place, that no entreaties could induce him to go on with the search for Floy. His usual clear head and steady nerves had apparently deserted him. The truth was, that he was on the verge of a severe illness that seized on him that night and prostrated him for several weeks. When he was gone, the impatient lover confided all to his family, and announced his immediate departure for Mount Vernon. “I shall take a posse of men and expl

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CHAPTER XLVIII. A STRANGE ROMANCE.

He said, with a long-drawn sigh: “Life is sad to many, my dear little girl, and perhaps I have had as sad an experience as any.” She looked at him with questioning eyes, and, although he was usually very quiet and reserved, after the English nature, the lovely face drew him so strangely to her that he continued: “Suppose we compare notes. I will tell you what a great sorrow I have had in my life, and then you may tell me your story.” Floy did not reply, and he saw her rosy under lip quiver as if

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CHAPTER XLIX. “SOMETHING TERRIBLE!”

Leaving Floy to explain matters to her new-found father, we must return to Mount Vernon and follow our hero in his search for his missing love. At his hotel, which was located within a square of the Maury mansion, he found that the all-absorbing subject of conversation was of the disasters that had befallen the Maury family within the last twenty-four hours. The great importing house of Maury &amp; Co. had failed yesterday, and the head of the house had fallen dead of a stroke of apoplexy. A

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CHAPTER L. THE LAST VICTIM.

It was no wonder that the fiends’ laugh echoed no longer through the dark, grim halls of Suicide Place, since its awful Moloch had claimed the sacrifice of the sixth decade. Beresford and his sister stood as if turned to stone upon the threshold, gazing in upon that awful sight, on which the sun’s last rays flickered dismally, as if in pity. No wonder Otho and Maybelle had not returned last night! No wonder their disappearance remained so deep a mystery! They lay here dead in that awful house wh

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CHAPTER LI. “JUST ONE KISS!”

“Oh, we hope not!” they answered, soothingly, and raised her gently, placing her on a soft couch by the window, where the summer breeze could caress her pale brow. “Oh, how I have prayed and prayed for some one to come,” she continued. “Ever since midnight I have lain here fainting and reviving, fainting and reviving, too weak to rise, and longing for water to cool my parched throat. Oh, thank you, thank you, how sweet and cool it is! Oh, what a wretched day! When I heard your steps and voices c

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CHAPTER LII. ALL THAT FLOY HAD LONGED FOR IN OTHER DAYS WAS HERS NOW.—LUCKY LITTLE MORTAL!

The Beresfords returned to New York the next day sick at heart and dispirited, for the mystery of Floy’s fate was more inexplicable than ever. In twenty-four hours after their return Lord Miller’s card was received. Mrs. Beresford was out, and St. George was ill again from the fever of a baffled hope. So Alva went down alone to meet the handsome Englishman, and their mutual attraction toward each other was strengthened by this interview. His earnest sympathy with her brother tempted her to confi

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