All for Love; or, Her Heart's Sacrifice

Transcriber’s Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

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NEW EAGLE SERIES No. 1172

All For Love

_By Mrs. Alex. Mcveigh Miller_

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1--Queen Bess By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 2--Ruby’s Reward By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 7--Two Keys By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 9--The Virginia Heiress By May Agnes Fleming 12--Edrie’s Legacy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 17--Leslie’s Loyalty By Charles Garvice (His Love So True) 22--Elaine By Charles Garvice 24--A Wasted Love By Charles Garvice (On Love’s Altar) 41--Her Heart’s Desire By Charles Garvice (An Innocent Girl) 44--That Dowdy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 50--Her Ransom By Charles Garvice (Paid For) 55--Thrice Wedded By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 66--Witch Hazel By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 70--Sydney By Charles Garvice (A Wilful Young Woman) 73--The Marquis By Charles Garvice 77--Tina By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 79--Out of the Past By Charles Garvice (Marjorie) 84--Imogene By Charles Garvice (Dumaresq’s Temptation) 85--Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold By Charles Garvice 88--Virgie’s Inheritance By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 95--A Wilful Maid By Charles Garvice (Philippa) 98--Claire By Charles Garvice (The Mistress of Court Regna) 99--Audrey’s Recompense By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 102--Sweet Cymbeline By Charles Garvice (Bellmaire) 109--Signa’s Sweetheart By Charles Garvice (Lord Delamere’s Bride) 111--Faithful Shirley By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 117--She Loved Him By Charles Garvice 119--’Twixt Smile and Tear By Charles Garvice (Dulcie) 122--Grazia’s Mistake By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 130--A Passion Flower By Charles Garvice (Madge) 133--Max By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 136--The Unseen Bridegroom By May Agnes Fleming 138--A Fatal Wooing By Laura Jean Libbey 141--Lady Evelyn By May Agnes Fleming 144--Dorothy’s Jewels By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 146--Magdalen’s Vow By May Agnes Fleming 151--The Heiress of Glen Gower By May Agnes Fleming 155--Nameless Dell By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 157--Who Wins By May Agnes Fleming 166--The Masked Bridal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 168--Thrice Lost, Thrice Won By May Agnes Fleming 174--His Guardian Angel By Charles Garvice 177--A True Aristocrat By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 181--The Baronet’s Bride By May Agnes Fleming 188--Dorothy Arnold’s Escape By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 199--Geoffrey’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 203--Only One Love By Charles Garvice 210--Wild Oats By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 213--The Heiress of Egremont By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 215--Only a Girl’s Love By Charles Garvice 219--Lost: A Pearle By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 222--The Lily of Mordaunt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 223--Leola Dale’s Fortune By Charles Garvice 231--The Earl’s Heir By Charles Garvice (Lady Norah) 233--Nora By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 236--Her Humble Lover By Charles Garvice (The Usurper; or, The Gipsy Peer) 242--A Wounded Heart By Charles Garvice (Sweet as a Rose) 244--A Hoiden’s Conquest By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 250--A Woman’s Soul By Charles Garvice (Doris; or, Behind the Footlights) 255--The Little Marplot By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 257--A Martyred Love By Charles Garvice (Iris; or, Under the Shadows) 266--The Welfleet Mystery By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 267--Jeanne By Charles Garvice (Barriers Between) 268--Olivia; or, It Was for Her Sake By Charles Garvice 272--So Fair, So False By Charles Garvice (The Beauty of the Season) 276--So Nearly Lost By Charles Garvice (The Springtime of Love) 277--Brownie’s Triumph By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 280--Love’s Dilemma By Charles Garvice (For an Earldom) 282--The Forsaken Bride By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 283--My Lady Pride By Charles Garvice 287--The Lady of Darracourt By Charles Garvice (Floris) 288--Sibyl’s Influence By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 291--A Mysterious Wedding Ring By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 292--For Her Only By Charles Garvice (Diana) 296--The Heir of Vering By Charles Garvice 299--Little Miss Whirlwind By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 300--The Spider and the Fly By Charles Garvice (Violet) 303--The Queen of the Isle By May Agnes Fleming 304--Stanch as a Woman By Charles Garvice (A Maiden’s Sacrifice) 305--Led by Love By Charles Garvice Sequel to “Stanch as a Woman” 309--The Heiress of Castle Cliffs By May Agnes Fleming 312--Woven on Fate’s Loom, and The Snowdrift By Charles Garvice 315--The Dark Secret By May Agnes Fleming 317--Ione By Laura Jean Libbey (Adrien Le Roy) 318--Stanch of Heart By Charles Garvice 322--Mildred By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes 326--Parted by Fate By Laura Jean Libbey 327--He Loves Me By Charles Garvice 328--He Loves Me Not By Charles Garvice 330--Aikenside By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes 333--Stella’s Fortune By Charles Garvice (The Sculptor’s Wooing) 334--Miss McDonald By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes 339--His Heart’s Queen By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 340--Bad Hugh. Vol. I. By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes 341--Bad Hugh. Vol. II. By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes 344--Tresillian Court By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 345--The Scorned Wife By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 346--Guy Tresillian’s Fate By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 347--The Eyes of Love By Charles Garvice 348--The Hearts of Youth By Charles Garvice 351--The Churchyard Betrothal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 352--Family Pride. Vol. I. By Mary J. Holmes 353--Family Pride. Vol. II. By Mary J. Holmes 354--A Love Comedy By Charles Garvice 360--The Ashes of Love By Charles Garvice 361--A Heart Triumphant By Charles Garvice 367--The Pride of Her Life By Charles Garvice 368--Won By Love’s Valor By Charles Garvice 372--A Girl in a Thousand By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 373--A Thorn Among Roses By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon Sequel to “A Girl in a Thousand” 380--Her Double Life By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 381--The Sunshine of Love By Mrs. Harriet Lewis Sequel to “Her Double Life” 382--Mona By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 391--Marguerite’s Heritage By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 399--Betsey’s Transformation By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 407--Esther, the Fright By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 415--Trixy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 440--Edna’s Secret Marriage By Charles Garvice 449--The Bailiff’s Scheme By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 450--Rosamond’s Love By Mrs. Harriet Lewis Sequel to “The Bailiff’s Scheme” 451--Helen’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 456--A Vixen’s Treachery By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 457--Adrift in the World By Mrs. Harriet Lewis Sequel to “A Vixen’s Treachery” 458--When Love Meets Love By Charles Garvice 464--The Old Life’s Shadows By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 465--Outside Her Eden By Mrs. Harriet Lewis Sequel to “The Old Life’s Shadows” 474--The Belle of the Season By Mrs. Harriet Lewis 475--Love Before Pride By Mrs. Harriet Lewis Sequel to “The Belle of the Season” 481--Wedded, Yet No Wife By May Agnes Fleming 489--Lucy Harding By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes 495--Norine’s Revenge By May Agnes Fleming 511--The Golden Key By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 512--A Heritage of Love By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon Sequel to “The Golden Key” 519--The Magic Cameo By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 520--The Heatherford Fortune By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon Sequel to “The Magic Cameo”

All For Love

OR, Her Heart’s Sacrifice

BY MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

Author of “Love Conquers Pride,” “The Man She Hated,” “A Married Flirt,” “Loyal Unto Death”--published in the NEW EAGLE SERIES.

[Illustration]

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION PUBLISHERS 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

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Copyright, 1903 NORMAN L. MUNRO

All for Love

(Printed in the United States of America)

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All For Love.

Chapter I. A Familiar Song.

From a cottage window, embowered in azure morning glories, a girl’s sweet voice sang blithely:

“My heart with joy would thrill if you loved me, ’Twould give this life of mine its fill of ecstasy; Each golden moment spent with you on wings of Joy would flee; The sky would be a ceaseless blue if you loved me!”

Berry Vining, the little village beauty, singing so blithely at her window of a love that as yet she had never known, was at the crisis of her fate, for at that very moment down the village street swept a gay cavalcade of riders, and as the sweet voice floated out upon the air, their glances turned upward in irrepressible admiration.

“What odds to me how dark the night if you loved me, For in your eyes a beacon light of love I’d see; My future, now a dark abyss, forever changed would be, To sunny paths of rosy bliss if you loved me!”

She was so lovely, this little Berry Vining, with her wealth of curly chestnut locks, framing a face so fresh and fair as the morning glories round the window--so lovely, with her big, wondering, brown eyes under long, shady lashes, her sea-shell tints, her perfect little nose, and rose-red lips, and dainty chin, where dimples swarmed, entrancingly, whenever she smiled, that no one could look at her without admiration.

When all those eager eyes were leveled at her window the girl drew very hastily backward, but not until she had seen one hat lifted from a handsome head in her honor, as the man’s eyes paid eager tribute to her charms.

It all passed in a moment, but not too quickly for that flashing glance to strike fire in a romantic maiden’s heart.

The laughing, chattering riders passed on, the handsome men, the pretty women, and Berry hid her blushing face among the green, heart-shaped leaves of the morning glories, and whispered to the flowers:

“Oh, what a handsome young man! What beautiful eyes, what a loving smile! How grandly he rode on that fine bay horse--like a young prince, I fancy, although I never saw one--and how courteous to bow to me, though he had never seen me before! Even proud Miss Montague, who rode by his side, did not appear to notice me, little Berry Vining, that she has known all her life! Oh, how I envy her the joy of being with him, of hearing him speak, and looking into his beaming eyes! I would give the whole world for such a splendid lover!”

“Berry! Berry!” called an impatient voice from the foot of the stairs, but unheeding the summons, her thoughts ran on in melodious whispers to the soft, green leaves:

“Oh, I love him already, I cannot help it, for when his eyes met mine a great rapturous shudder thrilled me through my whole being and told me I had met my fate! Oh, shall we ever meet again, I wonder! We must, we must, or my heart will break with love and longing! It was prophetic, that song I was singing as his eyes met mine!” and she began to hum again tenderly:

“What odds to me how dark the night if you loved me, For in your eyes a beacon light of love I’d see!”

“Berry!--Ber-en-i-ce Vi-ning!” called the impatient voice downstairs again, and starting from her rosy dreams of love, the girl flew to reply:

“Well, mamma?”

The pale, faded little mother answered complainingly:

“Always too late! I called you to look at the riding party from Montague’s--their summer guests--five grand couples of them, on horseback! But you missed everything coming down so slow!”

“Oh, no, dear mamma, for I was watching them from my window, and saw all. How fine they looked, indeed! I wish I could be like them!”

“If wishes were horses beggars would ride!” mocked the pale, tired mother sourly. “Come, now, and tidy up the kitchen, for I must be off to my day’s work. There’s no rest for the weary.”

She snatched down a rusty black bonnet from the nail where it hung, and hurried from the house, hastening downtown to the shop, where she worked by the day for the pittance that supported herself and daughter. She was a tailoress by trade, and had been reared, wedded, and widowed in this little New Jersey town. Her eldest children had all married, and gone to humble homes of their own; she lived alone in the tiny cottage with her youngest girl, Berenice, or Berry, as she was familiarly called. A boy, still younger, lived on a farm with a relative.

Berry, now almost nineteen, had many admirers, but none of them had ever touched her romantic young heart, much to the regret of her work-worn mother, who longed to see her pretty darling settled down to married life in a comfortable home, with a good husband.

But Berry had only laughed at her suitors, for in her girlish thoughtlessness she did not realize her mother’s cares and anxieties. Unconsciously to herself, perhaps, she had secret ambitions, born, it may be, of her high sounding name Berenice, or the knowledge that she had the gift of beauty, so potent in its spell upon mankind.

Berry longed for higher things, and despised the humdrum lives of her sisters with the humble mates they had chosen. Like another Maud Muller, she longed for something better than she had known.

So as she tucked the blue gingham apron over her spotless print gown, and deftly tidied up the kitchen, her excited thoughts followed the gay cavalcade of riders with eager interest and longing.

“I believe I am as pretty as any of those proud, rich girls,” she murmured, glancing into the little cracked mirror over the mantel, and sighing: “Why should I have so different a fate? Why did my poor father have to drive an humble delivery wagon all his life and die of a malarial fever at last; and why does poor mamma have to work as a tailoress, while Rosalind Montague has a millionaire for a father, and a fine lady mother flaunting in silks and diamonds? In only one thing has God made us equal, and that is beauty. I have rivaled her to-day with her splendid lover, and who knows but it may end in raising me to her height of wealth and pride! If he loves and marries me, how much I can do for poor mamma and the others! They should never have to work so hard again. Oh, I am so happy, hoping he loves me, for even if he were poor and humble as I am, I could love him just as well.”

“Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat!” went the knocker on the door, and her heart leaped wildly as she flew to open it.

There stood the red-headed lad from the florist’s with a large bunch of splendid red roses, wet with morning dew, and exhaling the rarest spicy fragrance.

“American beauties, Berry Vining--for you!” he cried, thrusting them into her eager little hands, with a significant grin on his good-natured, freckled face.

Chapter II. The Rosy Emblem.

Berry cried out in delight as she pressed the flowers to her face:

“Oh, how sweet, how lovely! Who sent me the roses, Jimmy Dolan?”

“Gent from up ter de hall, sure, but I dunno his name. He was goin’ past our shop on horseback with Miss Montague, and when they turned the corner he rid back and bought these roses and guv me a dollar ter bring ’em ter you, Berry--leastwise he said, ‘that pretty girl in the morning-glory cottage down the street,’ so I knowed ’twas you, and then he said: ‘Tell her the roses came from an ardent admirer.’”

With that Jimmy darted away, and left Berry standing with the roses pressed to her face, lost in a dream of delight.

“He loves me, loves me! For love is the emblem of the sweet, red rose,” thought the romantic little maiden, trembling with pure joy.

To her young mind the gift of the roses was like an avowal of love from the handsome stranger, and she went happily about her simple tasks, hoping, praying that before another day they might meet again.

When Mrs. Vining came home that night to the simple tea Berry had prepared, she wondered a little that the girl wore the pretty, ruffled, white gown that had been kept sacred to Sunday toilets before.

“Must be invited to a party--never saw your Sunday gown on before, in the middle of the week,” she observed tentatively.

Berry, blushing almost as red as the rose on her breast, answered carelessly:

“Oh, I just thought of standing at the gate to see the people going up to the lawn fête at the hall to-night, you know.”

“And wishing in your heart you could go, too, silly child; ain’t you, now? Well, you’re pretty enough to be there, if that was all, Berry, but it isn’t, more’s the pity for you, so don’t waste any regret on it, dearie, for remember the true saying: ‘Poor folks have to have poor ways.’”

“I don’t think it should be the way, mamma, for I’ve often heard it said that clothes don’t make the man--nor woman, either! For instance, now, Miss Rosalind Montague is no better, nor prettier, than I am, if she were stripped of her fine clothes and jewels!”

“Fie, fie! you vain little chick, I’m surprised at your talk. Let me hear no more of it. You must be contented in the sphere where Heaven has placed you, Berry. Or, if you wish to better your lot, you have a fine chance before you now.”

“What do you mean?” gasped Berry breathlessly.

“You have another proposal of marriage--one from a rich man!”

“Oh, mamma!” gasped Berry joyously, her eyes beaming, her cheeks aflame.

She could think of one--only one lover--at this moment.

How quickly he had found out her mother, how impetuous he was, her handsome lover--how impetuous, how adorable!

The future stretched before her eyes in a haze of bliss--the realization of all the golden gleams she had been weaving to-day on the airy foundation of a bow and smile, and the gift of a bunch of red roses!

Silly, happy little Berry! How quickly her dream was to be shattered!

Mrs. Vining, draining her teacup, and setting it back in its saucer, now continued blandly:

“To-day my employer--Widower Wilson, you know--was talking to me about this very lawn fête that the Montagues are giving up at the hall to-night, and he said it was to announce Miss Rosalind’s betrothal to Senator Bonair’s handsome son, the one that rode with her this morning, Berry. And he went on to say--what do you think, my dear?” triumphantly.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” Berry answered, with a sudden paling cheek, while she said to herself, in dismay:

“Oh, no, no, no, he is not engaged to her--he cannot be! He loves me--me only!--and he will surely come and tell me so!”

“He said, my dear, that he was hoping to have a lawn fête, too, very soon, to announce his engagement to the sweetest and prettiest girl in New Market, if she would have him, and he wanted her mother to ask her to-night if she would. Now can you guess?” smiling broadly.

“N-no, mamma!” faltered Berry.

“Why, then, you are very stupid, indeed, to-night, and I never found you so before! Well, then, it’s you, child, you, poor little Berry Vining, he wants to marry, when he might aspire almost to the highest. What a match for you, dearie! Aren’t you proud and glad?”

Berry, stamping her little foot, cried out petulantly:

“Mamma, you must surely be going crazy! The idea of marrying old Wilson, indeed! Older than my own father, for he began as errand boy in Wilson’s shop, and then old Wilson must have been white-headed!”

“He was not, you pert minx, he was only a young married man, not more than ten years over your father’s age! But what does that matter, when he’s a widower now, worth a hundred thousand dollars, and willing to stoop to marry a poor girl whose father drove his delivery wagon, and whose mother works by the day in the shop to take care of you!”

“I wouldn’t marry the old blear-eyed miser if every hair of his head were gold and strung with diamonds, but you may take him yourself, mamma, if you want him so badly in the family!” cried Berry, with mocking laughter.

“I only wish he would give me the chance, since you are such a fool!” angrily replied the disappointed mother, who craved the ease and comfort for her old age that Mr. Wilson’s money would give to herself and pretty, thoughtless Berenice.

She flung herself down on the kitchen lounge for her usual evening nap after tea, and her daughter, still laughing at the ridiculous suit of her aged wooer, hastened outdoors to the front gate to watch every passer-by with a throbbing heart, in the eager hope of his coming--his, her lover, for she would call him that in spite of a hundred Rosalinds! It was false what they said of his betrothal to the proud, rich beauty, with her flax-gold hair and bluebell eyes. She could never believe it, never, after all that had passed to-day--the bow, the flashing glance of love, the gift of the roses. Presently he would be coming to tell her that he loved her, and her alone.

It was one of those moonlight nights in early September, that seem like June. The full moon shone in a cloudless sky, sown thick with stars; the air was warm and fragrant, and seemed to pulsate with love. Every girl remembers how on such a night she has hung over the front gate, gowned in white, with a rose in her hair, waiting and watching for a lover dearer to her heart than all the world beside!

Berenice did not watch long in vain, for it was a true presentiment that told her the idol of her heart was coming.

Men and women passed and repassed for almost an hour, but at last her heart leaped with subtle ecstasy, for one paused and stood in front of her, gazing down with a smile into her starry eyes.

“Ah, Miss Vining, good evening!” cried a musical voice. “You see, I have found out your name. Mine is Charley Bonair. Do you remember me?”

Chapter III. Sweethearts.

Remember him? ah!

Berry could have laughed aloud at the tender question.

She knew that she could never forget his glance and smile of this morning her whole life long.

Yet, with her pretty head poised, coquettishly, on one side, and her eyes half veiled under their shady lashes, she faltered demurely:

“I--I--believe you are the same gentleman that passed with Miss Montague this morning, and bowed to me.”

“Yes, you are right,” he answered, with a soft laugh, as he leaned his elbows on the gate with his face very close to her, while he continued tenderly:

“And from the first moment I saw your lovely face I could not get you out of my mind. I asked Miss Montague who was that pretty young girl, and she frowned at me, and said: ‘There’s not a pretty face that can escape you, Charley; but that is only little Berry Vining, the daughter of a poor tailoress, not in our set at all, so don’t ask for an introduction.’”

Berry’s cheeks grew hot, and her heart thumped with anger as she said to herself:

“I’ll pay you out for that, my proud lady, by taking him away from you!”

Handsome Charley Bonair continued wheedlingly:

“As I couldn’t get properly introduced to you, I thought I’d present myself. I see you are wearing some of my roses.”

“Thank you so much for them; I love roses dearly,” murmured Berry, in shy bliss, her head in such a whirl under his laughing, ardent glance, that she hardly knew whether she was standing on her head or on her feet.

In his black evening suit, and a white carnation in his buttonhole, he was superbly handsome, and carried with him that subtle aroma of wealth and position so alluring to a poor girl brought for the first time in contact with uppertendom. It was as if a being from another sphere, a distant star, had fallen at her feet, stooping to lift her to his dazzling height.

Trembling with mingled pride and love and joy, she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes, her tender secret plain as day to him, almost too easy a conquest to the blasé young man of the world.

But he continued to smile very tenderly at her, and venturing to clasp her little hand as it clung to the top of the fence, he said:

“I am due at the Montagues’ lawn fête presently, but will you come with me for a little spin in my run-about first? It is just around the corner, and this is the finest night I ever saw for a moonlight drive.”

“Oh, I shall be delighted--but--but--I must ask mamma first,” declared the happy girl.

“Oh, no, for explanations would delay our drive, since I must soon be back to the hall. We will be home before she knows we are gone. Only a two-mile spin, dear little girl,” pleaded the tempter, pressing her little hand.

She thought:

“Mamma is asleep by now, and it would be a pity to arouse her from her nap. Surely there’s no harm in going, as I shall be back before she misses me! And I shall so like to have this triumph over proud Miss Montague, who tried to belittle me in his dear eyes.”

He saw that she was yielding, and, unlatching the gate, quickly drew her outside, placing her small, trembling hand on his arm, and leading her to the waiting trap.

A moment more, and he was lifting her into the elegant little trap, drawn by a magnificent blooded bay horse, whose silver-mounted harness glittered in the moonlight. Seating himself by her side, he took up the reins, and away they went through the town and out upon the broad country road, where the air, with the salty tang from the sea, was fresh and sweet and exhilarating.

“Almost seems like eloping, does it not?” laughed Charley Bonair. “What if it were so, dear little girl?”

Berry caught her breath with a startled gasp, a dizzy suspicion running through her mind.

Did he mean it?

Was it an elopement sure enough? Was he taking her away to marry her, now, to-night?

What would Rosalind Montague say?

She never dreamed of resisting if such were his will.

Poor little Berry was under the intoxicating spell of a maiden’s first love, and it did not seem to her as if her splendid hero could do anything wrong.

The bay horse flew over the smooth road, the fresh air blew in their faces, lifting the soft curls from Berry’s white brow, and she felt like one in Elysium. She was dwelling in a new and beautiful world, the golden land of love.

Yet, when her companion gently attempted to slip an arm about her waist, she decisively repulsed him.

“No, no; you must not make so free--we are almost strangers,” she exclaimed, blushing warmly.

“Strangers! Why I love you, little girl! Cannot you love me a little in return?” he pleaded.

Berry was about to answer him yes, taking this for a proposal of marriage, when she suddenly remembered the gossip about his betrothal to Rosalind, and drawing back, she faltered tremulously:

“But--but--they say that you are engaged to marry Miss Montague!”

“Bah! What has that to do with your being my sweetheart, I wonder; she need not know about it,” laughed Charley Bonair, leaning as close to her as she would permit, for she was recoiling in perplexity, murmuring:

“But is it true?”

“Why, yes, little one, I’m to marry her some day, I suppose! Deuced pretty girl, you know, and in ‘my set,’ and all that--very proper, of course. But I mean to have as many sweethearts as I like, before and after the wedding, if you please!”

If he had thrust a knife in her tender heart Berry could not have moaned more piteously, for all at once he seemed to her a monster instead of an adorable Prince Charming. With that heartbreaking little moan, she cried plaintively:

“Oh, take me home, take me home quickly! Please, please, please!”

And though the moon and stars still gleamed on as brightly as before, it seemed to her tortured mind as though the whole sky were veiled in inky darkness, and her dream of love and happiness had faded as before a chilling wintry blast.

He had told her he was indeed to marry Rosalind, but that he should continue to have as many sweethearts as he pleased! He dared even think she would consent to be one of them!

She began to tremble like a wind-blown leaf, and as he only laughed in answer to her pleading, she added wildly:

“You are cruel; you are wicked, to be making love to me when you are to marry another! I will have no more to do with you, so there, there, there!” and tearing the roses from her breast and hair, Berry flung them in his face with the passionate fury of “the woman scorned.”

“You dear little vixen!” he exclaimed, boisterously, without turning back.

Chapter IV. Legitimate Game.

To the gay young gallant, Berry’s anger only made her more charming. She had seemed too easy a prize before, for he had read her heart very quickly by the light of former experiences.

A millionaire senator’s only son, and not many years older than Berry, he looked upon this poor young girl who had fallen in love with him so easily as only legitimate game if he could win her heart.

Like a flash, it came to him with her bitter words that she could not be so lightly won, that she was proud and pure as she was fair.

The realization of this fact only made her more interesting. Now he swore to himself he would not relinquish the pursuit. There would be more zest in it thus.

So he only laughed at her entreaties to turn back, only laughed as the roses pelted his face and stung him with their thorns, only urged the bay to a greater speed, until Berry, her brief anger passed, suddenly crouched in her seat, sobbing forlornly, in woe and grief:

“Oh, why did I come? What made me so foolish? Hadn’t I always been told that rich young men had little use for poor girls, only to rob them of their happiness! Oh, Heaven, spare me from this wretch, and send me safely back to poor mamma!”

“Oh, come now, little darling, don’t be so foolish,” coaxed Charley Bonair. “Don’t you know I wouldn’t harm one hair of that pretty little head! Why, I only brought you out for a pleasant drive, and presently I’ll take you home safe to your mamma. Maybe I was rather mistaken in you at first, and thought you would be my little sweetheart for the asking. But I surely know better now, and I own I respect you more for it. Come, come, little girl, let us be friends again! Haven’t I been honest with you? Don’t I own my engagement to Rosalind, although ’pon honor, I almost like you better. But I couldn’t marry you, darling, even if I were free of Rosalind, for my proud, rich father and sisters would never forgive us the mésalliance; and my father would withdraw my allowance, and we should be poor as church mice; see?”

He had spoken gayly, but earnestly, and Berry, who had ceased her sobbing to listen to him, faltered, softly:

“If I loved any one very much I could be happy with him, even if we had not a cent in the world!”

The bashful avowal half sobered his gayety, and he exclaimed:

“Do you mean that for me, little one? That you could love me penniless, could marry me if the old dad cut me off with a shilling, and be happy with me on bread and cheese and kisses?”

“Yes, I could,” declared Berry ardently, forgetting in the passion of pure, first love all her ambitious dreams for the future. In a moment his arm slipped around her waist, and he drew her to him, crying recklessly:

“I’ll take you at your words, sweetheart; I’ll marry you to-morrow.”

“How dare you kiss me?” Berry cried, fighting him off with her weak, white hands. “Take your arm from my waist! You cannot deceive me with false vows. You are going to marry Rosalind Montague, who has your promise.”

“Bad promises are better broken than kept. I’ll marry you, my little darling, and tell Rosalind to find another husband!” Bonair answered, with another reckless laugh, still speeding his horse onward, though they were miles and miles away from home by this time, out in the open country, where houses were few and far between.

“I will not listen to your false promises. Oh, take me home, if you have the least regard for me! I did wrong to come, I know, but take me back before mamma misses me!” entreated Berry, clutching his arm with hysterical energy, tears raining down her pallid cheeks.

All at once she had lost faith in him, and his kisses had frightened her with their fervor, as she realized by the light of the words he had spoken the vast distance between their positions: he, the millionaire senator’s son; she, the daughter of the poor tailoress. No, no, he could never stoop to her, she could never drag him down--he was for Rosalind, his equal. As for her, life was over--she loved him so she could never love another, but she must die of her despair.

But Charley Bonair kept on laughing at her wild entreaties.

“Not yet--not yet!” he cried hilariously, while he urged the bay on, and still onward under the silvery moonlight. “Listen, Berry, I have a clever plan to humiliate Rosalind and cause her to break the engagement so that I may marry you: I shall take you back to the lawn fête, and dance with you there as my guest, with Rosalind and my haughty sisters. Oh, how angry they will be! If they order you to leave I shall defy them, and we will dance on and on, and Rosalind will be furious, vowing she will never speak to me again. How do you like my plan? Will you come with me back to the hall now?”

“Oh, never, never!” cried Berry, shrinking in horror from his sensational proposition, frightened, eager to escape.

“You shall!” laughed Bonair abruptly, turning his horse’s head to return.

“I will not!” she shrieked indignantly, and rose to her feet, reckless with despair. The next moment, to his horror, she sprang over the wheel, out into the rocky road, before he could lift a hand to prevent her.

Chapter V. The Turning Point.

As long as he lived, Charley Bonair would never forget that tragic moment.

All at once, the fumes of wine passed from his brain, and left him sober and horrified, the heart sinking like lead in his breast.

It flashed over his mind that Berry’s wild leap for liberty, made just as he turned the vehicle around, could hardly fail to result in her instant death on the rough and rocky road.

A loud groan escaped his blanched lips, and he drew the frightened horse swiftly back upon its haunches that he might spring out to go to her assistance.

But the spirited animal, frightened out of all reason by Berry’s leap, and his master’s wild cry of alarm, now spurned control, and darted forward at headlong speed, dragging the lines from Bonair’s hands, so that the light trap rocked so wildly from side to side he could barely keep his seat by clinging to the edges.

He felt himself rushing to instant death, and in his horror over Berry’s fate, he did not greatly care, though the instinct of self-preservation made him shout aloud while he clung desperately to the swaying vehicle that, after a mile or so of this tremendous rush, became shattered into pieces, mercifully enough for him, because he suddenly fell through the wreck to the ground, miraculously unharmed. The maddened horse still rushed forward with furious leaps, trying to rid himself of the fettering shafts that clung and hindered his flight.

He lay prostrate in the dust several moments, bruised, battered, and shaken, but, luckily, with no bones broken, so that presently he stood upright again, the only living thing in sight upon the lonesome road.

The moon and stars shone down upon him coldly, and the night winds seemed to reproach him in subtle whispers.

“Where is she, the girl who trusted you, whose tender faith you shattered with your reckless words?” it seemed to say.

With a groan he looked backward, then retraced his steps with difficulty, he was so shaken up from the shock and the fall.

But he knew that he must find her, dead or alive, must restore her to her home, for which she had pleaded pitifully.

There was a great ache, deep down in his heart, a passionate repentance for his folly, a dawning love greater than any he had ever known in his wild career.

“If Heaven would listen to such a sinner, I’d pray to find her, living and unhurt,” he thought wildly. “Surely if my unworthy life could be spared, hers should be! Dear, little, innocent Berry!”

Toiling wearily and anxiously along the road, he regained the spot where Berry had sprung to her fate. With a wild heart-throb he saw her white figure lying prone on the ground.

“Not dead! oh, not dead!” he prayed wildly, as he bent over the prostrate form.

Still and white, and seemingly lifeless, she lay, poor little girl; but placing his hand above her heart, he felt a faint, irregular flutter that assured him of life.

He looked wildly about for assistance, his pale face transfigured with joy.

“Berry, dear little Berry, speak to me,” he cried fondly; but there was no reply.

The dark lashes did not lift from the pallid cheeks, the sweet lips did not open to answer his pleading cry, the little hand he clasped seemed already cold with approaching death.

“Oh, if some one would happen along! If I only had a vehicle!” he groaned, sweeping his glance up and down the lonely road for a sign of life anywhere. But there was neither man nor house in sight, only unbroken vistas of trees lining the dreary road, and in the distance the prolonged baying of a hound that sent an evil shudder along his veins.

They were at least five miles from town, and he remembered with sickening self-reproach how he had promised Berry that it should be so short a drive, not over two miles at the longest.

“My accursed selfishness and vanity caused it all! If she dies, her death lies at my door,” was the thought that beat upon his bewildered brain.

Every moment of unconsciousness brought her death nearer and nearer; he realized it with cruel force. “Ah, Heaven, what should I do?” he cried, kneeling over her there in the dusty road, marveling even in his remorse and grief at the fairness of her pallid face.

There was only one thing to do--he must carry her back to town in his arms, since there was no other way.

Like Richard the Third, he could have cried out: “My kingdom for a horse!”

Realizing all the bitterness of his plight, he bent down and took Berry’s limp figure in his arms and started out to trudge the distance back to town.

Ordinarily this would have been no great feat, for Charley Bonair was an athlete of renown among his fellows. But he had got such a severe shaking up himself, besides partially spraining his ankle, that he was not very fit for the burden he now started out to carry.

He trembled under the weight of Berry, and the perspiration ran down his face in streams, while he had to hide his lips to suppress groans of agony, as the weak ankle now and then twisted under him so that he could barely proceed.

But he set his teeth, grimly, vowing:

“I shall take her home if I die for it. It is the only atonement I can make for my sin. How dared I think I could flirt with this pure, sweet little darling!”

He thought with wonder of her exquisite innocence and ignorance, of how surely she had believed at first that he really wished to marry her when she was so far beneath him in the social scale.

“I shall never forget her pride and anger when I showed her my real nature,” he thought ruefully. “Ah, what a strong sense of honor! How it put me to the blush! She is too good for me, sweet little Berry! It is better to marry Rosalind, who knows all my faults, doubtless, and is not very saintly herself.”

Suddenly he paused in distress, and looked about him.

The moon had gone under a dark cloud, the air had turned chill, a flurry of rain beat down upon him, groping in thick darkness with that dead weight in his arms. It was one of the sudden changes in September weather, capricious as April.

“We must get under shelter, somehow, somewhere!” he thought, looking toward the trees, then a cry of joy shrilled over his lips.

Among the trees he saw a light flare up like a precious jewel in the gloom. It came from the windows of a house.

He staggered toward it, drenched with rain, agonized at every step with his sprained ankle, and his mind in a tumult. How he gained the porch he scarcely knew, but he saw that it was a sort of tavern.

He stumbled on the steps and fell prone with his lovely burden.

Chapter VI. The Book Of Fate.

“Hello! What is this? Looks romantic!” cried a gay, female voice, as the owner ran forward, followed by several curious people, who united in concern for the drenched and hapless strangers thus cast upon their care.

With lively ejaculations of wonder, they got the pair into a large, shabby sitting room, where a troupe of stage people were making merry.

The most warm-hearted people on earth, they began, without any questions, to relieve their guests. Presently Bonair was able to explain reservedly:

“I was driving out with that young lady, a friend of mine, when my horse became frightened and ran away, throwing us both out. The accident happened about a mile back, and I carried the young girl in my arms, hoping to find a doctor somewhere.”

“There is one in the house and he has already gone to her assistance,” they told him.

“Tell him to save her life at whatever cost. I would give my own life to save that girl,” he cried anxiously, causing a sympathetic smile all around.

No one blamed him, for one look at Berry’s lovely face seemed to them sufficient excuse for the greatest devotion.

Meanwhile they found Bonair needing attention, also, for his injured foot was rapidly swelling and causing pain. The doctor came in presently and gave it the necessary attention, saying that his patient was reviving, and would presently be herself again, he hoped. There were some superficial bruises, but he hoped there was no internal injury.

“Thank Heaven!” cried Bonair fervently, pressing a roll of bills into the physician’s hand, while he added:

“If a covered vehicle can be had, I would like to take the young girl home to her mother, who may be uneasy at her delay.”

“But, my dear sir, that will be most imprudent; I should not like my patient to be moved until to-morrow. As for you, you might send word to her mother to come here.”

The young fellow shrank a little. He wondered how Mrs. Vining would take the news. He would doubtless get a sound berating from the old woman.

“But I have fully deserved it, and I will take my punishment like a man,” he thought grimly, and ordered the vehicle to be got ready quickly.

“There is a terrible storm raging--it is equinoctial weather, you know. Better wait till it clears up,” they said.

“No, I will not wait, if a man can be found to drive me. That poor mother will be very anxious,” he answered firmly.

In the teeth of the driving storm they set forth, but Charley Bonair never reached his destination.

The driver, a sulky-looking fellow, who had observed Bonair’s display of money at the inn, as well as his diamond ring, assaulted and robbed his passenger on the way to town, and left him for dead upon the highway.

When found the next morning, there was indeed but little life left in him--not enough to recognize any one, or to remember aught that had happened. Life became a blank to him for many days.

The return of his horse to the stable with the fragments of the trap clinging to the harness told what had happened to him, and no one suspected that a beautiful young girl had been his companion on that mad ride.

He could not speak and tell the story, for he lay ill and unconscious many days, and none guessed that the strange and continued disappearance of Berry Vining lay at his door.

The mother herself had found a plausible reason for her daughter’s absence.

She believed that Berry had fled in anger over their quarrel that night, dreading lest she should be coerced into a marriage with the merchant tailor.

“We had a quarrel, and I believe she ran away in a fret. No, I don’t think she has committed suicide. Berry wasn’t that kind of a girl,” she said, adding hopefully, “she has maybe gone and got a situation in a store in New York, and will write to me when she gets over her mad spell.”

The neighbors accepted this view of the matter, and no one could gainsay it. Mrs. Vining’s misfortunes with her children were an old story! She was always bewailing the disappearance of her handsome son by a former marriage: a son who had deserted her and gone none knew where.

Berry did not return, and no tidings came of her, but the deserted mother kept on at her work in patient sadness, hoping and praying for the welfare of her headstrong child, though too poor to make a search for the truant.

Thus the hand of Fate abruptly closed the first chapter in the acquaintance of Charley Bonair and the pretty village maid.

For when he recovered memory and consciousness far into October, they told him weeks had elapsed since he had been thrown from his trap and nearly killed, and that only the most skillful nursing had saved his life.

No one could answer the mute question in his eyes, for the secret of that night had never transpired, though he wondered how it had been so, saying to himself that Berry was a girl in a thousand to have held her tongue over such an accident.

“It is better so,” he said to himself, in keen relief, yet he resolved he would write her a note of thanks, which he hastily did, only to get it returned with the information that Miss Vining was gone away.

When cautious inquiries brought out the reputed facts of her disappearance, he was dazed with wonder. He made a secret trip to the old inn, but he found it closed and uninhabited.

It was a very bad moment that came just then to handsome, reckless Charley Bonair.

He was terrified at the mysterious disappearance of the winsome little beauty. He asked himself in an agony what had been her fate, cursing himself for having left her at the inn that night.

“What did I know of those people there? How dared I leave her unprotected among them? Judging from the fellow that robbed and nearly murdered me that night, the whole gang must have been rough and dangerous. Ah, little one, what has been your cruel fate?” he groaned to himself, tormented by the mystery that was so hard to fathom, because he dared not make any public hue and cry through fear of betraying Berry’s wild ride with him that, if known, must inevitably compromise her in every one’s eyes, despite her innocence.

The upshot of it all was that he went, privately, to a detective, and saying nothing of his real purpose, employed him to find out where the people had gone who kept the inn.

The owner of the house was found, and reported that the tenant, an old man, had died of apoplexy a month before. His servants were scattered and could not be found.

The identity of the theatrical troupe was next inquired into, and soon learned to be the Janice James Company. They could not be traced now, only in so far as that they had disbanded and scattered, some joining other companies, others going back to their homes, so that Bonair’s next move through the detective was to offer a reward through the personal columns of the New York papers for information regarding any member of the troupe. But weeks elapsed without bringing any reply.

Not even to the detective did Bonair confide his real motive for his quest. A new respect and tenderness for the girl he had tried to trifle with filled his mind, and made him as tenacious of her good name as if she had been his sister or his wife.

Chapter VII. A Suspected Rival.

“You may laugh at me for a superstitious girl, mamma,” declared beautiful Rosalind Montague, “but I shall always believe that postponements in love are ill-omened. Ever since the night of the lawn fête, when my lover failed to appear, and the fête was broken up by the sudden rainstorm that drenched all our pretty gowns, I have seen that something has gone wrong between Charley’s heart and mine. Do you know, mamma, he has never loved me the same, since his long illness?”

“Just your fancy, dear. To me it seems that he is yet ill and nervous after his terrible experience with his runaway horse that night. I have seen him start and turn pale when no one was speaking, as if from ghastly thoughts.”

“That is true, mamma, perfectly true, and he shudders sometimes when I barely touch his hand, and he is cold as ice to me, mamma, cold as ice. He seldom comes here, only when I send for him, and he never alludes to our engagement. Do you believe that his illness can have dazed his brain, that he can have forgotten?”

“It may be so--who can tell?” cried the proud old lady in velvet and diamonds. “I would sound him gently on the subject, Rosalind.”

“But, mamma, I should not know what to say, how to begin,” exclaimed the girl, with a slight blush.

“Oh, that is easy enough, dear--all roads lead to Rome! Ask him if he has any preference where to spend the honeymoon, or how long he is willing to wait until the wedding--or if he does not think your engagement ring is a little too loose--anything!”

“Thank you, mamma, I’ll stir him up somehow, for at present he is a very unsatisfactory lover. It almost looks as if I have a rival!”

“Oh, nonsense, dear, who could rival beautiful Rosalind Montague, the belle of her set, who won the millionaire’s son from a whole bevy of conspiring mammas and daughters!”

Rosalind smiled complacently at the flattery, and glanced at her reflection in the tall pier glass--a fair reflection, indeed, of a stately blonde with masses of flax-golden hair and large, blue eyes that could soften with love or flash with anger till they looked like points of blue steel. This delicate beauty, appropriately gowned in rich attire, had indeed made Rosalind the belle of her set, “the rose that all were praising.”

It was the most natural thing in the world for Charley Bonair to fall victim to her charms, even if his pretty sisters, her schoolmates, had not conspired to bring it about, artfully throwing them together, ably abetted by Rosalind and her scheming mamma.

He was one of the greatest catches in fashionable society--the only son of the millionaire senator, and although Madam Rumor said ungracious things of him--that he was dissipated, profligate, libertine--what of that? He would inherit several of his father’s millions, and could cover his wife with diamonds if he wished, so one must overlook the spots on the sun! Rosalind knew that she could not get a perfect husband.

To do the pretty Bonair girls justice, they were eager for the match, because they believed that marriage would reform their brother. And who so suitable a bride as Rosalind, their school friend, well-born, well dowered, beautiful, queenly, and secretly adoring the handsome prodigal!

So, among them all, they set a snare for Charley, and tripped him up. His battered heart succumbed easily. Rosalind had scored a triumph over all the beauties! Both families were charmed, and looked eagerly forward to the wedding day.

Right here was where Charley failed in loverlike duty, for he neglected to ask his betrothed to set the wedding day, apparently quite satisfied to make it a long engagement.

Mrs. Montague was not altogether pleased at his lukewarmness. To offset it, she planned the lawn fête to announce the betrothal. When the fact became public property, he must name the day.

We have seen how fate stepped in between and foiled their plans, and how the ominous shadow of that night’s disappointment hung over Rosalind’s ambitious hopes.

“What has put this notion of a rival in your head, dear girl?” continued the mother curiously.

Rosalind hesitated a moment, and a cold, angry glitter shone in her eyes, as she whispered:

“Mamma, of course I know the hard things that are said of Charley--that he is fond of cards, women, and wine. Well, I happen to know that the very day of our fête, even by my very side, my lover was attracted by a new beauty, and could not hide his admiration.”

“A new beauty--who?” demanded Mrs. Montague uneasily.

“You will be startled, mamma, but you will see that I am not jealous without a cause. Listen,” and Rosalind poured out the story of the morning ride when Charley Bonair had bowed to and admired little Berry Vining.

“He said, to my very face, that she was the prettiest girl he ever saw, but I told him how poor and humble she was, and ridiculed his fancy. I found out afterward that he rode back from my side to the florist’s, and sent her a great bunch of red roses. Was not that enough to make any engaged girl angry and jealous, mamma?”

“I must admit you are quite right, darling. Oh, what wretches men are!”

“Yes, indeed, and naturally after that I was jealous and suspicious. When he did not come that night I was almost wild, wondering if I was deserted already for the little village beauty. I did not sleep that night for anger and grief, though I was too proud to tell you until now, when I can no longer bear my trouble alone, because I am haunted always by two torturing questions.”

“What are they, my love?”

“One is this, mamma: ‘What became of that girl when she disappeared so suddenly from home that night? And--did Charley Bonair know anything of her flight?’”

“You suspect him of treachery?”

“Have I not cause? How strangely she fled from home! How lame were her old mother’s guesses at the truth! No girl could be forced to marry a rich old man against her will. Then again, mamma, how strange that Charley should be taking a ride miles out into the country that night, when he was overdue at our fête, where he was to be the guest of honor.”

“You talk like a detective, Rosalind.”

“Oh, mamma, do not ridicule me,” the girl clasped her white hands, imploringly. “Think how much I love him, how much I have at stake! I have puzzled out all this in torturing nights when I could not sleep for jealous pain.”

The proud woman of the world looked at her beautiful daughter, and a deep sigh escaped her lips. Stifling it with a sarcastic smile, she answered:

“It is the way of the world, my dear; men are wicked, and women are weak. It may be as you suspect, that he had a fancy for the girl, but you need not worry over that; you are the one he will marry, and he will tire of her and put her aside before your wedding day.”

“But, mamma, I hate her! I would gladly see her dead, the little hussy! How dare she accept his love, knowing, as all the town knows, that he belongs to me! And who would have believed such a thing of little Berry Vining, who seemed such a good, innocent little thing!”

“Those good little girls like Berry are just the ones to be deceived and ruined by designing men, child. But put it out of your thoughts, love, do. We cannot alter the world nor mankind, and all I can say to you is that it’s better not to brood over imaginary troubles. Bonair shall marry you, darling, never fear.”

Chapter VIII. Loved And Hated.

“Time put his sickles in among the days,” and the weeks slipped away and brought winter weather.

But long before the first snow, Charley Bonair had gone away from New Market, ostensibly for a yachting trip with some of his bachelor friends, leaving Rosalind piqued and angry.

For when she had asked him point-blank how long he wanted to wait before the wedding, he had answered debonairly, that she might take all the time she wanted. He guessed that both were young enough to wait a while. Anyhow, he wanted to have this bachelor trip with the boys before he thrust his neck into the matrimonial noose!

Rosalind, secretly furious at his indifference, was on the point of telling him to go and stay forever, but she bit the tip of her rosy tongue, keeping back the sharp retort, and half sobbed instead:

“Oh, Charley, I shall miss you so!”

“I should hate to think that you were lonely, dear, but I don’t believe you will be, for Lucile and Marie intend to have you with them in California for the winter months, after Christmas. Will you go?”

“Gladly, if you will promise to join us there when you come back.”

“It’s a bargain,” he answered, laughing, but none of her entreaties could prevail on him to fix the date of his return.

He did not really know, he said. It would depend on the other fellows. Meanwhile she was to enjoy herself in her own way; he would not find fault nor get jealous!

When he had gone away, she loved and hated him by turns, and she was more than ever sure that Berry Vining had stolen his heart.

“Oh, if I could find her, and were quite, quite sure of her guilt, I would wreak a bitter vengeance,” she murmured angrily, to the silent walls of her luxurious chamber.

She would have given anything to know the whereabouts of the girl she believed to be her rival.

It nearly maddened her to think that Charley might be seeing her daily, basking in her smiles, laughing with her, perhaps, over the deferred wedding. Her hatred of the young girl grew each day, until it became a passion for revenge.

“My day will come! Let her look to herself, that day!” she vowed bitterly.

She went one day to the cottage on pretense of getting a cloth suit pressed, and with pretended sympathy, asked Mrs. Vining if she had ever had any news of the missing girl.

Mrs. Vining wept as she declared that she had never heard any news of her daughter.

“She may be dead and buried for aught I know to the contrary, Miss Montague.”

“Perhaps she has eloped with a lover,” cried Rosalind, but the old woman frowned, and answered quickly:

“My girl was as pure and high-minded as the richest young lady in the land, miss, and she would never stoop to disgrace.”

“I hope it may prove so, indeed!” exclaimed Rosalind, from the depths of her jealous heart, and she went away, promising to send her maid with the tailor gown to be pressed.

The little cottage with the morning-glory vines all dead, looked dreary and deserted, and poverty-stricken; but poor as it was, the good widow could barely pay the rent. Rosalind could not help but think, as she walked away, that it was a poor setting for the lovely girl who had fled away from it rather than exchange it for the gilded misery of a loveless marriage, such as her mother had proposed.

One thing she had told Mrs. Vining earnestly:

“If you hear from your daughter, be sure and let me know, and I will make it worth your while. I take a deep interest in little Berry, you know.”

Aye, the interest of the hawk in the dove, proud beauty! The mother curtsied in gratitude, and thanked her for her kindness.

And just before Christmas she was startled to receive a note from the tailoress, saying she had heard from her little girl at last. She had run away to be an actress, because life in New Jersey was too dull and lonely. She had sent her mother a little money and a pretty picture of herself, and begged her not to be angry, but she was touring in California now, and it would be a long time before she came home again.

“In California--Charley’s own State. It looks suspicious,” muttered Rosalind, and she went over to the cottage to visit Mrs. Vining again.

But she did not find out anything more, for the letter had been mailed on a train, and Berry failed, perhaps by design, to tell her destination, adding in a postscript:

“I don’t ask you to write me, because I am always ‘on the go,’ but I have means you do not guess, of sometimes hearing of your welfare.”

“It is through him,” Rosalind thought bitterly, but she concealed her agitation, and congratulated the widow, prettily, on having heard from her daughter. Then promising to send her a handsome Christmas gift, she took leave.

Charley Bonair would have given thousands of dollars to know even what Rosalind had heard about Berry; for he had begun to mourn her as dead, and remorse stung like a serpent in his heart.

Always remembering that the man from the inn, who had robbed and tried to murder him, belonged to those people, he had decided they must all be cut-throats and robbers, and that Berry had most likely met her death at their hands.

With a heavy heart he landed from the yacht at San Francisco, deciding he would join his family there, and little dreaming the surprise awaiting him.

Chapter IX. Blue Eyes And Brown.

Senator Bonair’s palatial home in the magnificent city of San Francisco was ablaze with light and gayety that night.

Though the millionaire owner himself was absent, in attendance on the session of Congress at Washington, his two handsome daughters, with their aunt, who chaperoned them since the death of their mother, had preferred remaining at home this winter, and were entertaining a house party. On this night they were giving a grand ball, and neither time nor money had been spared to make it a great success.

To make it more notable, the dancing was to be preceded by a theatrical treat, a play given by actors employed for the occasion. The private theater of the mansion had been refitted for the event, and a superb orchestra engaged.

To add to the pleasure of the evening, the manager assured his employers that an entirely new play would be given--one written by a member of his own company, a lovely young girl, who would herself play the leading part in her clever production, “A Wayside Flower.”

All the invited guests were on the qui vive, for the entertainments of the Bonairs always surpassed any other given in the city, and hundreds of hearts of gay young girls and happy swains fluttered in anticipation.

As the time approached for the curtain to rise, not a seat in the small theater was vacant. Exquisite ball gowns and jewels gleamed everywhere, while the bright eyes of their wearers flashed upon their black-coated companions with swift coquetry.

Conspicuous among all, in a gown of white lace over azure satin, with rare pearls clasping her slender throat, and binding her thick waves of flax-gold hair, was Rosalind Montague, the honored guest of the house, the betrothed of the senator’s only son.

Rosalind had never looked more beautiful, and one who was gazing at her from an obscure seat, an uninvited, unexpected guest, could not help but acknowledge it in his heart with a thrill of pride.

“Poor Rosy, I don’t see why I cannot love her better! She will make a bride to be proud of when I conclude to settle down and become a benedict.”

Why was it, as he gazed at her brilliant blue eyes and sunny hair, that dark brown eyes and curly chestnut locks came between him and Rosalind so persistently? Why would not memory down, when it was torture to remember!

She never could be his, the little brown-eyed cottage maiden, who had scorned him for his light love, and flung his roses back into his face. How the thorns had stung, as well as the lash of her little tongue, as she had berated him so soundly. Then when she had flung herself so desperately from his vehicle to almost certain death, could he ever forget that tragic hour? He stifled a groan, and shrank back farther into the shade of the tall palm near the door, where he had slipped into an irregular seat not in the rows. Oh, Heaven, what had been the mystery of her fate? Since he could not fathom it, why could he not forget? He must forget, he vowed, passionately to himself, for by and by, when he became Rosalind’s husband, it would be a sin to his blue-eyed bride for those haunting brown orbs to come between.

When he landed first in the city a whim had made him go first to a hotel, where, hearing of the entertainment going on at home, he had gotten himself into evening dress and arrived at the last moment, when his sisters, already in the box with Rosalind and other guests, were waiting, momently, for the curtain to rise on the first act in the play. It would not do to interrupt them now. Greetings must wait.

Anyhow, they were not missing him. Several men were in the box with them, giving attention and receiving it. He remembered he had told Rosalind he should not care how much she flirted, and she was taking him at his word.

The blue eyes as they looked upward to the dark-eyed man bending so eagerly to them, were very tender and languishing, and many a lover might have been jealous, but Charley Bonair was not conscious of a pang. Although he felt a certain pride and sense of proprietorship in her beauty, he did not mind the other fellow’s palpable admiration.

The chief thing that worried him now was that he was haunted by other eyes--brown eyes, soft with love, brown eyes, flashing with anger, always brown eyes! “Eyes it were wiser by far to forget.”

Again he stifled a long-drawn sigh, and glanced at the curtain, for the blare of the orchestra had begun, and presently the play would be on. He remembered just then to look at the elegant program the usher had thrust into his hand.

He had barely time to see that the play was entitled “A Wayside Flower,” when the orchestra ceased, and the curtain rolled up, showing the first scene.

He caught his breath with a gasp, and rubbed his eyes with a bewildered hand, then looked again to see if his vision had played him false.

Chapter X. A Tragedy Of Love.

One easily guesses that “A Wayside Flower” was the story of a young girl--beautiful, but poor.

The rich hero’s fancy turned from his betrothed, the proud beauty, his equal in wealth and station, to the simple village maiden.

With all the arts of love he wooed her for his own.

When the maiden, pure as snow, turned in grief and anger from the proffer of the heart without the hand, he deceived her by a mock marriage, swearing her to keep the secret.

In the distant village, where they spent their blissful honeymoon, she somehow discovered through a letter he had dropped that he was betrothed to another, and the wedding day set.

Undreaming of treachery, yet grieved for her hapless rival’s sorrow, _Daisy_ reproached her young husband for his flirtations, and insisted on his writing at once to the young girl to break off as gently as possible the engagement he could never now fulfill.

Carelessly assenting, _Chester_ wrote the letter under _Daisy’s_ eyes, sealed and addressed it, and pretended to have her post it to make sure.

But he had cunningly slipped quite another sort of letter into the envelope, and destroyed the one she had seen him write.

By and by came the time when he must leave her alone and return to his home, lest his rich father disinherit him on finding out the truth of his marriage to the village beauty.

He never returned.

For a while came letters filled with love and devotion, and always inclosing money for the little wife.

Weary months slipped away, and brought the winter snows. The deserted bride fell ill, and besought her husband to return to her side.

Blank silence fell. No more letters, no more money.

In the simple cottage where she boarded, the people began to hint at desertion. The villainous son showed her loverlike attentions.

When _Daisy_ repulsed him in anger he showed her a letter from her husband that broke her heart.

_Chester_ had written to the villain that the girl was not his wife. He had deceived her by a mock marriage. Now he was weary of her, and would see her no more. In fact, he was about to go abroad for years, and if he, the villain, would marry the girl, he would pay him handsomely to keep the whole thing quiet.

For the sake of her beauty and the bribe he was offered, this poor apology for manhood was ready to make _Daisy_ an honest wife, but when she refused him with biting scorn he made his weak mother thrust her into the street, homeless and penniless in the winter’s snow.

_Daisy_ pawned her simple jewels and journeyed back to her deserted home and widowed mother, praying only to die under the roof that had sheltered her childhood and girlhood.

Then she heard that there was to be a grand wedding up at the hall that night. Her false lover was about to wed the beautiful heiress, his social equal, his chosen mate.

Poor little _Daisy_ had been plucked as carelessly as a wayside flower, and thrown aside to die.

The poor old mother, half crazed by her daughter’s shame and despair, cried bitterly:

“You have only yourself to blame, girl! I brought you up to shun rich young men; I told you they had no use for poor girls but to wreck their lives. You would not believe what I told you, you laughed at my warnings, and fled with the villain that ruined you. Now you have returned to drag out a wretched existence under the ban of scorn, while he goes scot-free and weds another!”

The wretched _Daisy_ knew that it was all true. She shut herself into her room, and brooded over her trouble till her brain went wild.

In the evening she came down to her mother, calm with the calmness of a great despair.

“I have thought it all over, dear mother,” she said gently. “I did wrong to come back to you in my trouble; because you warned me and I would not listen. So I have no right to stay here and cloud your life with my shame and sorrow. I am going away forever. Good-by, dear mother. Say that you forgive me before I die!”

“What do you mean, child? Where are you going? What is this wild talk of dying? Come back, _Daisy_; mother will forgive you,” cried the poor mother, but _Daisy_ had fled through the door out into the cold moonlight, shining on a world that was white with snow.

“I must follow and bring her back. I scolded her too harshly,” the mother cried, snatching her bonnet and hastening after her child.

But her poor, rheumatic limbs could not keep pace with _Daisy’s_ flying feet. She could not overtake her in time to prevent the tragedy.

The bridal cortège was moving out from the gates of the hall, and some little children belonging to the tenant were throwing flowers in front of the bridal carriage as it started toward the church where the fashionable throng was waiting.

The clear moonlight and lamplight showed _Chester’s_ face plain as day, as he sat by the side of the bride.

With a cry of reproach and despair that shrilled to heaven, _Daisy_ darted into the road, and flung herself under the horses’ feet.

But _Chester_, sitting there, pale and handsome, on his way to his wedding, had seen that lovely face upraised to heaven as she darted forward, had heard that terrible cry, and it pierced his false heart like an arrow.

He gave an answering cry, and tearing open the carriage door, as the vehicle swayed under the driver’s frantic efforts to throw the horses back on their haunches, he sprang out and strove to tear _Daisy_ from under their desperate hoofs.

The maddened animals dragged the reins from the driver’s hands, and their steel-clad hoofs came down with a dull thud upon _Chester’s_ and _Daisy’s_ bodies as they writhed on the ground.

It all passed more quickly than one could describe it, and almost before the people in the next carriage knew that anything was happening the ill-fated pair were drawn from their terrible position, crushed and dying.

The frightened bride, reckless of her white gown and slippers, sprang out into the snow.

“Oh, what has happened?” she cried, in wild alarm.

Then she saw _Chester_ prone upon the ground, with blood streaming from a cut in his head down over his pallid face, while he held to his heart the slight figure of an unconscious girl. The bride knew the pale face instantly. It was the little cottage maiden, who had eloped with a mysterious lover whose identity no one knew.

“Oh, _Chester_, what does this mean? What has happened to you?” demanded the bride wildly, and turning his heavy eyes on her face, he groaned:

“_Geraldine_, I have sacrificed my life to save this poor girl!”

“Why did you do it? What is she to you?” fiercely.

Like an arrow from a bow straight to her heart came his answer:

“The truth is cruel to you, _Geraldine_, but I feel that I am dying, so I must make a full confession. I deceived this poor girl with a mock marriage, then deserted her, returning to make you my lawful bride. Realizing her despair, she has returned and chosen to die beneath my horses’ feet. I have given my life vainly in the effort to save poor little _Daisy_.”

_Geraldine_ realized that people were crowding round about her, that the white face of the “best man” was close to hers, his arms shielding her from falling to the ground, but she kept her eyes glued on that pale, dying face, and her ears strained not to lose a sound of that weak, dying voice.

“_Geraldine_,” he faltered on, “I meant to marry you for wealth and position, but in my heart I loved _Daisy_ best. I was not worthy of your love, but I pray you to forgive me, and to see that I am buried by the side of the girl who was my wife in the sight of Heaven.”

He had thought little _Daisy_ dead, but suddenly her dim eyes flared open and rested adoringly on his face. Her dulled hearing had caught words that made her ineffably happy.

“Darling!” he muttered brokenly.

The best man stifled _Geraldine’s_ cry of rage with a daring hand upon her lips.

“Forgive him, dear, you shall not miss him,” he whispered tenderly. “Do you remember how we loved each other before that lovers’ quarrel, when he came between? Now you know he was unworthy, let us begin again, dear. Tell him you forgive and will do his will.”

_Geraldine_ trembled at the warm touch of his hand, and bending over _Chester_, gave the promise he asked.

“I forgive you; you shall rest side by side,” she faltered, not a minute too soon, for in another moment the lovers were both dead, clasped in each other’s arms.

The first scene in “A Wayside Flower” showed the heroine singing a love song at a window wreathed in morning glories, and as Bonair gazed in wondering agitation, he saw that the singer’s face was that of little Berry Vining!

Chapter XI. The Curtain Falls.

Clever little Berry had taken the one romantic chapter out of her own life’s history and made a romance out of it, such as her sad heart and simple experience prompted--a trite little story enough, save for its tragic ending.

And as she had considerable histrionic ability, she was able to take the leading part with much credit to herself, winning enthusiastic applause from her audience.

She could not have acted so cleverly had she known under whose roof she was, and what eyes were gazing on her lovely face as she entered with whole-souled spirit into her part.

Charley Bonair stood apart to Berry in a little world of his own. She scarcely connected him with the millionaire senator of California, and his lovely sisters she had never seen. It was only the home of a stranger to her, this palatial house where she had come with her company to act for the pleasure of the ball guests.

Life had been a whirl to Berry Vining since the night when she had been carried senseless into the company of actors, who, charmed by her exquisite beauty, had easily persuaded her to join them on the road. Gifted with much natural dramatic talent, she had quickly “caught on” to the art, and now earned a subsistence by her work. In this arduous life, too, she could more easily put from her the memory of her shattered love dream, so brief, so bitter-sweet.

Yet in quiet moments it returned to vex her soul, so that she wove the beginning into a story of love and sorrow that grew and grew until her morbid fancy shaped it into a tragic romance.

Meanwhile the death of the leading lady gave Berry her position, and she had a chance to act her romance on the boards of the Bonairs’ private theater.

It was easy to put her heart in it so wholly that the audience seemed to her like so many lay figures, and she dreamed not that Charley Bonair’s eyes watched her, eagerly, from far back at the door, where an artificial palm half hid him from sight, while from a prominent box Rosalind Montague gazed in startled wonder, almost as if Berry had risen from the dead.

For it must be the little village beauty, the coincidence was too striking to admit of a doubt.

There sat the girl singing at the vine-wreathed window, just as on that September morning, when the gay cavalcade of riders went past, and Charley Bonair had turned her curly little head with his flashing glance and bow--singing, too, the same sweet lay of love and longing:

“My heart with joy would thrill if you loved me, ’Twould give this life of mine its fill of ecstasy; Each golden moment spent with you on wings of Joy would flee; The sky would be a ceaseless blue if you loved me.”

The gift of the roses followed next, and as Rosalind saw the fair girl in her white gown kissing the flowers, and fastening them in her hair and breast, she trembled with anger and jealousy.

“The little minx! She has dared make a play out of her silly flirtation with Charley,” she thought; “she dares even to play it in his own home, hoping to meet his eyes again, but, thank Heaven, he is far enough away from here, he will never know.”

If a look could have killed pretty Berry, she must surely have fallen dead upon the boards, so deadly was the hatred with which Rosalind watched her, for she thought:

“It is just as I suspected between Charley and her, the little hussy! He eloped with her, and, perhaps, was with her until he went on that yachting trip to shake off her fetters. It is doubtful if there was even any pretense of a marriage between them. No doubt she was eager enough to go without a wedding ring, thinking of the money she could cajole out of her rich lover. Oh, I see just how it is now! She is very clever, this Berry Vining--she came here trying to win him back, thinking he may have got home again! Oh, how glad I am he is still away, for he would easily fall into her toils if he were here, the weak fool, carried away by every pretty face! How well she acts! I never dreamed it was in that cottage girl, such cleverness in writing a play, and then acting it. She is indeed a rival to be dreaded, and I must do something to get rid of her, that is clear. Even if Charley tired of her once, he would love her again in this pretty play that shows her off to so great advantage! Oh, what wretches men are, as mamma says! How they make a girl’s heart ache with jealousy over their fickle love! If I did not love him myself, I would not care so much, but he’s all the world to me, my Charley! What shall I do to get rid of her before he returns to the city? If mamma were here she would tell me not to mind, that it could never come to aught but a light love. But I do mind; I will not endure his unfaithfulness! If I thought no one could even find me out, I believe I could almost strike her dead before me, I hate her with such intense fury!”

“Rosy, how strange you look! You are pale, and your eyes gleam with blue fire. The poor girl’s trouble seems to be getting onto your nerves! But she is really a very clever actress, and enters well into the part,” exclaimed Marie Bonair, with a suddenness that made her start and tremble.

But she rallied herself, and murmured back:

“It’s really quite thrilling, and I almost forgot where I was, dear. This was the third act, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, and I’m almost sorry; I have been so interested. Every one else is, too. See how eagerly they keep their eyes on the stage. Our play was a great success. Well, we will soon come to the banquet, and then the dancing. Do you know that we have spread an elegant collation for the actors, too, in the small dining room?”

“How very nice of you, Marie!” murmured Rosalind, but to herself she added viciously:

“I wish I could poison that girl’s wine undetected! I wish some of the stage properties would get on fire and destroy her beauty, anyway. Oh, anything that could happen to that girl would be welcome to me, so that he never saw her face again.”

The fell spirit of murder had entered the jealous girl’s heart!

The curtain rose again on the fourth act, and although the introduction of horses on the stage was a very difficult feat, still it was quite well done. The lovers died, gracefully, in each other’s arms, and the widowed bride clung fondly to the attentive best man. In the vernacular of one of the troupe, the play had been a “howling success.” The company was called back to receive the plaudits of the spectators, and the audience rose at the leading lady with enthusiasm, pelting the little beauty with flowers and jewels.

But one man far back in the theater, hurried away with his hat before his face.

“I hope no one has recognized me, for I really am not fit to join my people to-night. I must get away and collect my thoughts,” muttered Charley Bonair.

Chapter XII. A Phantom At Dawn.

“An Indian seeress in an alcove off the western corridor will tell everybody’s fortune.”

The whisper ran from lip to lip at the banquet table, where the players were being feasted and wined by the hospitable Bonairs.

The gay, impressionable people of the troupe were charmed with the idea, and when they left the table they went en masse to the alcove, chaperoned by the housekeeper, who under orders from her mistress was doing the honors.

As they were admitted one by one to the alcove, the others, waiting in the magnificent corridor lined with tall palms, statues, and pictures, strolled about, peering into rooms and admiring the splendor of the palace where they were for the moment sojourners.

The housekeeper, a portly, loquacious woman, kept by Berry’s side, having conceived a liking for the lovely actress.

“Would you like to see the folks dancing in the grand ballroom for a minute or two? Come, then, I’ll give you a peep,” she said, leading the willing girl quietly away from the others.

The next thing they were out of doors, going along a quiet alleyway bordered with fragrant blossoming trees, and the sound of dance music came to them in a wild blare of melody.

“Here now, look in at this window,” whispered the woman.

Berry looked, and gasped:

“It must be fairyland!”

“’Tis grand, ain’t it, now?” replied the housekeeper. She watched Berry’s dazed eyes taking in the immense room with its costly fitting, tropical decorations, and dazzling lights under which moved a hundred couples in each other’s arms, to the tilt of the intoxicating waltz music, and smiled at the young girl’s wonder.

“These Bonairs, you see, miss,” she explained, “are the richest folks in California--what you call multi-millionaires--more money than they know what to do with! I’ve been housekeeper to them these twenty-five years. I came when they were first married. I was here when the senator’s three children were born, and when his good wife died, and I expect to be here till I die. Have you ever seen any of the Bonairs?”

“Oh, no, never!” Berry answered absently, and the woman clacked on:

“Then I’ll point them out to you if they come in sight. See that fat lady, with the velvet gown and diamonds, and the white pompadour? That is old Madam Fortescue, the senator’s widowed sister, who chaperoned his two daughters, Misses Marie and Lucile, great beauties, both of them, and both engaged to marry rich New Yorkers. I think they mean to have a double wedding in the fall. It will be a great affair, you know. Their brother, Mr. Charley, is engaged, too, to a New York belle and beauty, and she’s here now, the guest of the house--Miss Montague! Why, what’s the matter, miss? You startled so!”

“Oh, nothing, don’t mind me! Go on, please!” Berry managed to articulate, feeling as if the earth had heaved beneath her feet.

The truth had burst upon her so suddenly that only by the greatest effort could she keep her self-possession.

With the utterance of Miss Montague’s name everything became clear.

She was under the roof of Charley Bonair!

She clung with both hands to the window ledge to hold herself steady, and listened with a dull roar in her ears, while the woman continued:

“Mr. Charley, now, he’s away on a long yachting trip, and dear knows when he will be back. They do say he is sowing an awful crop of wild oats, poor boy, but he’s good at heart, so he is. A dearer boy when he was growing up, I never saw! And that fond of pets, why he has a fine zoölogical collection on these grounds here. You wouldn’t believe it, maybe, but he’s even got two bear pits, miss, and in one of them the bear has two new cubs. She’s that savage over them, she would tear you to pieces if you touched one of them! And birds and smaller animals, now, you’d be surprised at the number. If you like to come here to-morrow, I’ll take pleasure in showing you around. The little bear cubs, my but they are cute! And to hear Zilla, their mother, growling over them, it’s a wonder!--makes cold chills run over one, sure enough!”

“They are running over me now!” gasped Berry, clutching the woman’s hand with one that was as cold as ice. “I--I must go. Please take me back to my friends; they will be going back without me!”

“Oh, plenty of time, miss--you must stay till you get your fortune told, sure.”

“Really, I don’t care. I mean, I’d rather not,” faltered Berry, trembling all over with a sudden nervous premonition of evil that shook her like an ague.

“Ah, don’t be scared at the old fortune teller, dear miss, she may tell you something pretty,” urged the good-natured woman, guiding the trembling girl back to the corridor and the alcove, where the last one was coming out, and the merry troupe were chattering like magpies.

“Oh, come, Miss Vane, she is waiting for you,” the gay girls cried, pushing her in, and pulling to the curtains behind her.

The horrible old Indian seeress enthroned among draperies of Eastern tapestries, worth their weight in gold, and hideous in theatrical red light, clutched the girl’s white hand, and peering at the rosy palm, began to mutter a sibilant jargon of fateful words.

And presently the actress, Vera Vane, who had risen from the ashes of Berenice Vining, flung aside the draperies and rushed from her presence, pale as a phantom at dawn.

Chapter XIII. An ILL-Fated Girl.

The merry actors and actresses all began to chaff Berry on her pale face and frightened eyes.

“She is actually scared!” “What did the old hag tell you, dear?” “She gave all of us fine fortunes!” they chimed in together. But Berry put them aside with a trembling hand, and sank, half fainting, into the nearest seat.

Mrs. Hopson, the housekeeper, came to her rescue.

“Don’t pester the poor child till she gets over her scare. Land sakes, miss, don’t take that nonsense to heart, please. Them old Indian squaws don’t know the future any better than you do!” she said kindly, but Berry did not hear the well-meant words. She had fainted.

When she came to herself she was lying on a cot in Mrs. Hopson’s room, and all the others were gone.

“You were so long coming around I told them I’d keep you all night, or send you back in a carriage when you felt better,” she explained.

“Oh, you are very kind. I--I think that I will go presently, when I am a little stronger. But do not let me, dear Mrs. Hopson, keep you from your duties. I can lie here alone, please,” faltered Berry eagerly.

“Very good, my dear miss, for I have many things to see to to-night, and I’ll be very glad to have you for my guest till morning,” returned the good woman, pressing a glass of wine on the young girl, and then going out with a promise to be back in an hour.

Left alone, Berry lifted her head and glanced eagerly at the clock.

“Midnight--it lacks half an hour to it yet. Oh, must I keep that strange tryst or not? Am I indeed menaced by so terrible a fate, and can this old Indian really prevent the doom by the loan of so singular a charm as she offers? It seems very foolish, but I have heard my dear mother and her cronies often reiterate the same thing--that a person born with a caul over the face--that is to say, a thin membrane of skin that may be dried and preserved--is the fortunate possessor of a charm against drowning--that such a charm may be bought or loaned, and always proves a safeguard. How very strange; but there are many things we cannot understand! And what was it the old fortune teller said of me? I was fated to die a terrible death by water in twenty-four hours, unless I could procure such a charm. She possessed one herself that she would lend me for one week, when the risk would be over, but she must first go home and procure it, and she would meet me in the grounds on the northern walk going to the private zoo at the stroke of twelve. Shall I go? Is it worth while living when one is alone in the world as I am, for all my kindred now living are uncongenial to me, and there can never be any love story for poor, deceived Berry, who gave her heart too easily at first, but can never take it back again?”

With a bursting sob, the girl pushed back the heavy locks from her forehead, murmuring on:

“Can it be true, as that old hag assured me, that my dear, dear mother is dead? But she read my palm like an open book. I can see her yet peering into my palm, hear her cracked, sepulchral voice mouthing such dreadful words: ‘Little girl, your rosy palm has all the secrets of your life clearly written there. You have drunk deep of the cup of love, but the dregs were bitter; you looked above you for a lover, but you had a beautiful rival, a high-born lady, who held his heart and his hand. Hopeless of ever winning your heart’s idol, and destined by your mother to a marriage for money, you deserted your home, and fled far away with new friends. Is it not so?’”

“You have spoken the truth,” sobbed hapless Berry. “Oh, I did not dream you could find all that in the palm of my hand. But now you have told me of the past, read me the story of my future. Tell me what awaits the most ill-fated girl in the world.”

“You may well say ill-fated,” croaked the hag, still clutching the little white hand, and peering into its lines as one reads an open book; “I read horror upon horror here, and--it is better not to know.”

“Yes, tell me all,” cried Berry recklessly; “go on, go on!”

With a heartless chuckle the seeress muttered:

“Before I touch on the impending tragedy of your future I must return to the past. The old mother who loved you so dearly, whom you deserted so cruelly in her old age--that old mother lies dead!”

“Oh, no, no, no!” sobbed Berry, sinking to her knees in despair.

“It is true,” croaked the sibyl. “She lies dead, and her last word was a curse upon your wicked head.”

“Not wicked; oh, no--only weak and suffering,” moaned the girl. “Oh, mother, now I have indeed nothing to live for, nothing to love.”

“That is just as well, girl, for fate hangs heavy over your head,” croaked the hag.

“What fate could be more cruel than mine?” sobbed Berry wildly.

The old Indian wagged her turbaned head, muttering low:

“Death is the most cruel fate of all when it overtakes the young, the beautiful, the loving. It is death that menaces you, girl--death in a horrible form by drowning!”

“Why should I tremble at death? I have nothing but toil and sorrow in my life,” cried Berry wearily, with the tears running down her face.

Again the woman peered into her hand, replying:

“The doom is not a certainty, only a risk. It may be averted, and if you escape it, there will come a wondrous change in your life. There will be years of love and happiness and wealth before you.”

“You are sure, quite sure?” the girl cried piteously.

“It is written, and nothing can alter it,” cried the seeress, and Berry thought of some words she had read in a book of Eastern verses:

The moving finger writes; and having writ, Moves on: nor all your piety, nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

She knelt there sobbing piteously, as a beaten child, and that cracked voice went on, and on:

“I can save your life, girl, and I will do it, because you are so young and so fair that I pity you. If you will meet me on the stroke of twelve down in the Bonair grounds in the northern walk leading to the private zoo, I will lend you for a week a charm against drowning--for nothing, because I pity you so. When the week is ended the danger will be past, and a long and happy life lies before you. Is it worth the trouble? Will you come?”

“I--I--yes, I will come!” faltered Berry wildly; then she fled from the hag’s presence, followed by a low, exultant laugh, and in the hall she fainted with the horror of all she had heard, believing that the woman must indeed be gifted with supernatural powers.

Now that she was alone, it all rushed wildly over her, and she knew that she must go to receive the mysterious charm that could avert her impending doom of death.

“I can go and be back again before the kind housekeeper returns,” she thought, slipping out of the room and stealing like a shadow along the dim corridors till she reached a door that led out upon the beautiful grounds into the calm, sweet night.

Chapter XIV. Cottage And Castle.

The beautiful California night, sweet and balmy, although it was March--how like a dream of beauty lay the grounds about Bonair, with their thick shrubberies and fragrant flowers!

Yet Berry, unused to nocturnal wanderings alone, would have been frightened only for the wild excitement that dominated every other emotion.

The full moon rode queenly in the cloudless sky, and shone like silver on the lovely scene--on tall groups of statuary, gleaming whitely against clumps of tropical shrubbery, on arbors twined with roses, on tinkling fountains, on tall, white clumps of lilies and beds of hyacinths, scenting the air with sweetness. All that wealth and taste could devise in this land so favored by nature, was here in lavish measure adorning the many acres of ground that surrounded the picturesque pile of magnificent buildings called Bonair.

And simple Berenice Vining, to whom all this was so new and amazing, caught her breath with a gasp, remembering that Charley Bonair was heir to it all--the only son of the proud multimillionaire.

She felt for the first time the vast difference between her and the man who had made careless love to her for twenty-four hours--love that was not great enough to bridge the gulf between the lowly cottage and the lofty castle, so that she might walk across it to his arms.

Her thoughts flew to the old home, to the humble cottage, with the morning glories climbing all over it in blue and white and roseate glory, and a yearning came to her for her little room again, with its cheap white ruffled curtains at the window, and the simple adornings so dear to a young girl’s heart.

Her heart rose in her throat, and she had to pause and lean her head against a tree, while she sobbed in hysterical distress:

“Oh, mamma, mamma!”

Remorse throbbed at her bosom’s core. She had done wrong to forsake the dear old mother whose heart had been broken by her desertion.

“Alas, why was I not there to pray for her forgiveness? She was all I had to love me on earth! Those older brothers and sisters, they never cared for Berry. They always scolded and berated me because I was mamma’s pet; they said I was a spoiled child. None of them will ever care to see me again!”

She sobbed on brokenly, without noticing that the clock in the high tower had solemnly tolled out the midnight hour, when she was to meet the fortune teller and receive the charm that was to ward off her impending cruel doom.

She did not even notice, in her perturbation, the delicate odor of a fine cigar blending with the scent of the flowers close by, and she would have darted away in alarm had she dreamed that a young man was sitting on a rustic seat in a clump of shrubbery just back of her--so close indeed that she might have caught the sound of his quick breathing only that it was drowned by the tinkle of the fountain that, throwing its spray high in the air, fell back again like the low patter of rain upon the broad leaves of the lily-bordered pool.

But as for him, he had caught every word she uttered, and he knew every tone of the sweet voice, too, though he could not see her face as she clung there with her cheek against the rough bark of the tree.

It was Charley Bonair, sick at heart and troubled, who had hidden himself there in the solitude of the beautiful night to puzzle over the problem of his destiny.

He thought he had worked it all out before in the moonlight nights on the yacht, before he had landed from it at San Francisco. But that was when he had believed that Berenice Vining was surely dead, and that nothing remained but his duty to Rosalind.

Now it all rose again like a ghost that would not down--the struggle between his heart and his duty, for they did not agree.

His troth plight held him to Rosalind, his love belonged to Berry.

But the pure little cottage maiden would not accept the heart without the hand.

Now that he knew she still lived, his heart was in a tumult between love and pride and duty.

He did not wish to make a mésalliance. His pride clung to Rosalind, the heiress, and he felt he owed her all respect and duty.

But his code of morals was so lax that if he could have possessed Berry without a wedding ring, he would have been loyal to her, even while wedding her rival, and found a measure of happiness in the double life.

But so certain was he of the little maiden’s stainless purity, that he knew it would be useless to reveal himself to her, although sobbing there in touch of his hand.

At the first sign of his presence he knew that she would fly from him in alarm and consternation.

He had come home determined to be good, and delight all his relatives by asking Rosalind to name the wedding day. He had decided that since Berry must surely be dead he could jog along quite comfortably with the blond beauty. Since neither one professed to be greatly in love, there would be plenty of ways for such rich people to keep out of each other’s way.

All at once now he went back to his old resolve.

“I must marry Rosalind and be done with it. There would be no end of a bother with my folks, and probably disinheritance, if I cut the whole thing and married little Berry. Besides, Rose is a good girl, after all, and it would be a shame to break her heart.”

Just as he came to this eminently virtuous resolution, and was softly rising to sneak away from the temptation of folding the sobbing Berry to his heart, there came an unlooked-for incident.

The sound of muffled footsteps suddenly paused by the tree, and a hoarse voice muttered impatiently:

“Why did you fail to keep the tryst, girl? It is long since the midnight bell tolled, and I grew weary of waiting.”

Berry gave such a convulsive start backward that the blossoming shrubs behind her were shaken, and dropped a shower of sweet flower petals to the ground.

“I--I--oh, I was so wretched thinking of my dear mother dead and my lost home, and the sorrows of my life, that I forgot everything else,” faltered the poor girl, with a dazed air. “What was it, please, you wanted of me?”

Charley Bonair was not going to leave just now, oh, no! He would stay and see what lark the girl was up to, anyway. Perhaps time had changed her, and she was not the good little angel of the past! Somehow he felt himself grow jealous at the thought, even while the quick thought came she might now be more to him.

Why did he feel all at once that he hated little Berry? Was it that she had destroyed his faith?

I deemed her the one thing undefiled By the air we breathe, in a world of sin; The truest, the tenderest, purest child, A man ever trusted in.

What was this reproach for a tryst she had failed to keep? He would listen, he would learn her sin.

He leaned forward on his tiptoes, and got a good peep through the rose branches at Berry and her interlocutor. The latter looked like an old Indian squaw, picturesque draped in an old red blanket, with a feathered headdress over her seamy, swarthy face.

“Ah, a woman!” the young fellow thought to himself in keen relief, that made his heart throb tumultuously.

He heard the coarse, guttural voice replying cajolingly:

“Have you forgot so soon, girl, the charm I promised when I told your fortune, that was to avert a threatening doom, and bring to you wealth and happiness?”

Berry gave a little cry of remembrance and pleading:

“Oh, I remember it all now. Forgive me that I forgot. Oh, I was so sad, so sorrowful, I could think of nothing but the tale you told me of the death of my old mother. Oh, is it really, really true?”

The agony of those upraised eyes was enough to pierce a heart of stone, but the old crone answered malevolently:

“It is true as that the moon and stars shine in the heavens to-night. She thought that you had fled with a rich young man, who meant to ruin you, and she cursed you for your sin and her disgrace.”

“Oh, but I am innocent and pure as the day I was born! I pray Heaven that in death she knows the truth!” moaned the poor girl wildly.

“We have no time for all this rant! It is time for honest folks to be in their beds!” rejoined the Indian impatiently. Charley Bonair started, asking himself:

“Now, where have I heard that voice before, and that old saw in the same tone? It is strangely familiar, somehow, with a difference that baffles one!”

He heard Berry murmur again sobbingly:

“Forgive me, I did not mean any harm. Have you brought the charm with you?”

Then indeed Charley Bonair could scarcely keep from betraying himself by laughing outright.

“I left it around the path there in my bundle. Come with me and you shall have it.”

“I thank you,” Berry answered, simply and sweetly, and moved away by her side, a slim, white, girlish figure by the tall, grotesque figure of the other.

Bonair started to follow, then drew quickly back.

“It is none of my business to go spying on the dear, silly little girl,” he decided. “She must be in love with some other fellow now, by her anxiety over the old fortune teller, who knows no more of her future than the man in the moon. I’d better go back to the house and announce myself, and done with it! Hello, I’ll finish my cigar and drop around to my zoo, and see Zilla first. They wrote me she had two cubs and was savage as a lioness!”

He sauntered along in the moonlight when the cigar was lighted; but suddenly his repose was shaken by a terrible sound--loud, piercing shrieks coming from the direction of the zoo.

Chapter XV. Strange Mysteries.

“The shrieks are coming from the bear pit! What if some one had fallen in there!” cried Bonair, turning suddenly cold as ice with apprehension, and starting at a wild run in the direction of the sounds.

As the housekeeper had told Berry, her young master had been fond of animal pets from boyhood, and had quite a choice collection of his own at the southern end of the park, where they were taken care of by a man and his wife.

In this miniature zoo there was an aviary, some prairie dogs, a monkey house, and some larger animals, including bears of different species. Zilla, the black bear, was his favorite. He had got her himself several years ago while deer hunting in the mountains of West Virginia. A handsome fawn, a black bear cub, and some smaller animals, were the trophies he carried home, and he had duly christened the cub Zilla, and petted her so much that she loved him with a doglike devotion. In his last letter from his sister Marie, she had told him that Zilla was now the proud parent of twins, and had become fierce as a lioness in defense of her young.

He had just started for the bear pit, idly wondering if Zilla would know him again after his absence of almost a year, when those frenzied shrieks of some one in deadly peril made him fly to the rescue in breathless haste, his heart sinking with a terrible dread.

Suppose it were little Berry herself that had unwittingly stumbled and fallen into the bear pit?

Oh, horrors! One blow of Zilla’s big paw would be sufficient to kill the lovely brown-eyed maid. In the twinkling of an eye, she would be dead!

There was one chance in a hundred for her life.

If he could get there before the fatal blow was given, if he could spring down into the pit, and arrest Zilla’s furious onslaught by the sound of his voice--the voice of the beloved master!

But would she remember him still? Would she yield obedience to his command in her new character of motherhood, filled with the instinct of protection to her young? If she would not, then woe unto any poor wretch who had fallen into her angry clutches!

With these thoughts in his mind he flew toward the zoo, with a wild prayer in his heart to be in time, just in time!

Every moment was an eternity, and his feet seemed to drag beneath him. He had never realized the value of a moment of time before.

But now life itself seemed to hang upon his haste.

Fortunately the distance was short, so that he covered it in a space of time less than five minutes--five minutes that might have been fatal, alas, for ere now the wild shrieks had died into silence more terrifying still--portentous silence in which the victim might have died.

At last! At last! After an eternity of time it seemed to him--he reached the scene of his suspicions.

He was right, for from the pit came terrible sounds, while all the varied denizens of the zoo, having been startled from sleep by the screams of fear, were making hideous din in their several voices, the uproar creating a sort of babel of the scene.

Over all shone the full moon in a cloudless sky, making everything almost as clear as day.

Bonair flung himself face downward, peering into Zilla’s abode.

Down there was something white that could dimly be seen on the ground, while Zilla crouched over it, hitting pounding blows with her big paws. The other three bears who shared the pit were not taking any part, only walking about on their hind legs, expressing dismay and wonder by dismal and prolonged growling.

“Oh, Heaven, have pity!” Bonair cried wildly, and leaped into the pit.

He fell flat on his face, and Zilla’s attention was quickly attracted so that the lifted paw, big, hairy, ponderous, fell nerveless as she turned desperately on the new intruder upon her domain.

Before he could struggle up to his feet, breathless from his race and the shock of his fall, the black bear dealt him a blow hard enough to knock the life out of him if he had not been nerved by a terrible anxiety that almost made him proof against her force. He got up feebly and clutched at her, muttering through a mouthful of blood:

“Zilla! Zilla!”

The name proved his salvation, for the huge black animal was opening her arms to crush him to her in a grip that meant death, but she paused in sudden indecision.

“Zilla! Zilla!” the man cried again hoarsely, entreatingly, his heart leaping to his throat in panting gasps.

A stifled moan smote his ear, but it did not come from Zilla, but from the still white something on the ground, and at the sound the bear turned toward it again with a ferocious growl.

But the great uplifted hairy paw did not fall, for with lightning swiftness, Bonair sprang forward, his fist shot out with terrible force and struck the animal just between the eyes, so that she lurched backward.

“Zilla, you devil, if you have hurt her, I will kill you!” he shouted, as he flung himself between them.

Madam Bruin, who had seen stars for a moment as his fist struck her face, now regained her feet, standing erect and menacing, but without making direct attack. She seemed dazed, stupefied, and a sort of shiver shook her huge black body.

As the moon shone down on the strange scene, she got her first look at the intruder, and she began to tremble more and more with the rush of instinctive memory. Bonair saw already that the battle was won.

“Oh, Zilla, you know me at last,” he cried, in blended relief and exultation, and added:

“Down, down, wretched beast, at my feet!”

Oh, wondrous change.

It did not seem possible that the maddened, murderous, plunging beast of a moment ago could be transformed like this into a tender, loving animal that groveled on the ground and licked the master’s hand with a quivering red tongue like a dog’s. But the transformation was wrought.

There she lay prostrate at Bonair’s command, conquered, humble, loving, her huge black body quivering all over, her whole attitude one of complete submission.

“Lie still, now,” her master commanded, roughly stroking her head, even while he turned in an agony of anxiety to that figure huddled on the ground the other side of him. He stooped down to examine it, and as he did so Zilla’s fury returned. She growled and half rose, but his restraining hand thrust her fiercely back.

“Must I slay you, beast?” he demanded, with a blow that forced her to be quiescent, while he made a further examination of the white something that after one moan had given no further sign of life.

Alas, his fearful heart had told him right.

It was she, Berenice Vining, the little maid who had stirred his heart to love’s joy and pain as no other woman had ever done before! Little Berry of the starry eyes and pure heart.

Gowned in simple white and seemingly lifeless, she lay, and he turned to find some implement to slay Zilla, in the rush of furious vengeance.

But the bear had slunk from him to the corner where her darlings whined in their soft nest, and he tripped and fell in his agitation--not in a pool of blood, but upon a soft mass of wool--the thick red blanket he had seen on the Indian fortune teller when she had come to drag Berry away to this hideous doom.

He comprehended that the woman had thrust Berry down to this awful death, and that in the life-and-death struggle, she had dragged down with her the scarlet blanket.

But why, why, why, had the old hag thirsted for this beautiful, innocent young life? was the question that struck him like a blow in the face.

He knelt down by her in anguish; he put his hand beneath her face and turned it to the light.

Fortunately there was no mark or bruise upon it to mar its lifeless beauty, but the lids lay heavy and dark on the white cheek, and the heart, when he laid his hand over it, had no pulsation. He had come too late. Zilla’s blows had battered out the life from the beautiful body!

Charley Bonair groaned in anguish.

“Dead! Dead! Poor little darling; sweet, pure child! How could so slight a form survive those thudding blows I heard as I dropped into the pit? They shall die for this, the old hag who flung her down to her fate, and the murderous Zilla, who finished her work! Now there is nothing left but to take her out of this accursed hole back to my home, my last dead love, my little Berry, whom fate placed beyond my reach. Ah,” the tone changed to one of horror, as a bullet whizzed suddenly down into the pit past his cheek and buried itself in his shoulder.

Chapter XVI. A Timely Rescue.

How closely joy and sorrow tread on each other’s heels, how nearly they touch each other!

Up at the splendid Bonair palace the music and dancing went on apace, Lucile and Marie being all in ignorance of their brother’s proximity and peril.

His presence in the theater had been unobserved, and none dreamed of his return.

The splendid fête went on, and the music of the orchestra and the sounds of flying feet drowned the shrieks of mortal peril that arose from the bear pit.

It seemed as if Charley Bonair and Berenice Vining, both victims of some mysterious enemy, must perish for want of a helping hand in this hour of terrible danger.

It must have ended thus in speedy death, had not the tumult of the bear pit been overheard at the small cottage near by, where the zoo keeper and his wife made their home.

The woman, a lighter sleeper than the man, had been half aroused by the sound of Berenice’s piercing shrieks.

She raised her head from the pillow and listened intently for a moment, and cold chills of terror ran down her spine at the agony of those fearful cries, as of one in mortal peril.

“Oh, surely there’s murder being done somewhere very close,” she groaned aloud, and now thoroughly aroused, proceeded to shake her husband awake.

“Wake up, wake up, Sam Cline; don’t lay there snoring like a pig, when somebody’s getting killed, sure! Wake, wake, wake!” she exclaimed, and to expedite the awakening, she sprinkled his face with cold water, which soon had the desired effect.

“What’s broke loose Mandy, hey?” he exclaimed, in bewilderment, and she answered:

“Sam, there’s been the most terrible screams coming up about the zoo, and now I can hear everything there roused up and making the most fearful din--enough to split your ears open. Listen, don’t you hear it yourself?”

“I’d be stone-deaf sure if I didn’t hear all that racket! Suthin’ dreadful must ’a’ happened, sure! I’d better dress and go up and see!” he answered, hurrying into his clothing.

“I’ll go with you,” declared Mandy, throwing on a wrapper, and thrusting her bare feet into slippers, without more ado, they rushed in the direction of the zoo, getting near enough when the shot was fired down into the bear pit to see a tall, white figure running away in breathless haste.

“Somebody’s trying to kill the bears, sure! I wonder what for, now!” gasped Mandy, almost breathless with her speed.

“Run! run! let’s catch her, the wretch!” panted Sam Cline, but the white figure, having the advance of them, seemed to fly like the wind, and quickly disappeared from sight.

Meanwhile as they rushed on, amid the babel of varied animal sounds, they came to the bear pit, and their further pursuit of the criminal was arrested by hearing a human groan, mingled with the hoarse, frightened growls of the brutes below.

How it all ended, Sam Cline related in his own words somewhat later, when he carried the news up to Bonair, calling Mrs. Fortescue out for the purpose.

“Land sakes, ma’am, a terrible thing has happened down to the bear pit,” he began excitedly. “Mandy and me was woke up by awful screams from down to the zoo, and then all the birds and beasts got scared, and sech a racket was never heard before, I reckon!--leastwise in the hour of midnight, when everything is s’posed to be still and asleep. Well, wife and I rushed out as fast as we could to the scene, and next thing, zip--bang! went off a pistol right in front of Zilla’s pit, and we saw a woman all in white running away like mad! We gave chase, but she had the start of us too far, and disappeared in the shrubbery jest as we got to the pit, and heard a terrible groaning that made us stop to investigate.” He paused for breath in his rapid narration, and the handsome old woman shuddered with prescient dread.

“Go on, go on!”

Sam Cline cleared his throat, and continued:

“We peered down into the bear pit--and, oh, what a sight was there, ma’am! All the bears in an uproar with fright and excitement, and in the midst of it all two people, a man and a woman, as we could see by her white dress. Well, we called to the bears, and they quieted down, knowing our voices so well, and then, I swear to gracious! I nearly jumped out of my skin with surprise, for a voice called out to me that I know as well as I know my own, and said, with a groan:

“‘Sam Cline, for Heaven’s sake, open the door and let us out of this den.’”

“A voice you knew?” repeated Mrs. Fortescue questioningly, but the man hurried on, in a voice broken by excitement:

“You may be sure that Mandy and I obeyed him fast enough, ma’am, and found out when we got in the pit that the man had been shot in the shoulder, and that the woman with him was apparently dead.”

“This is terrible!” shuddered Mrs. Fortescue.

“I should say so, indeed, ma’am,” answered Sam Cline, continuing. “The man told me he heard screams from the pit, and running to it, saw the woman being beaten to death by Zilla. He jumped down to her rescue, but just as he got the bear subdued, somebody fired down at him, and the ball went through his shoulder. He sank down with the pain, and grew weak with the blood spurting from the wound, just as we discovered him. Well, to make my story short, I tore off my shirt and bandaged his wound, Mandy fighting off the bears that went wild at smelling the blood. Then I took the dead woman in my arms, and Mandy led the half-swooning man, and so we got them to my cottage, and I telephoned for a doctor as soon as I could, and next thing, I posted up here to break the news to you and the young ladies about their brother.”

“Their brother!” exclaimed the old lady wonderingly, and he answered quickly:

“Yes, ma’am, their own brother, Mr. Charley Bonair, shot through the shoulder, and so upset by all he went through in the pit, that as soon as we got him in my house he fell down by the couch, where I laid the dead woman, and swooned with excitement, so I just left Mandy to revive him while I telephoned the doctor to come, and posted off up here.”

Mrs. Fortescue, pale and trembling, cried faintly:

“Are you sure you have not made a mistake, Sam Cline? My nephew is not even in San Francisco!”

“He landed from the yacht early yesterday evening, ma’am--he told me so--but he had not spoken to his sisters yet. He was in the grounds, coming home, I suppose, when he heard the shrieks from the pit, and ran to the lady’s assistance,” explained Sam Cline quickly.

“And the lady? Did you know her, Sam?”

“Not her name, ma’am, but her face. She was that pretty little actress that played in the theater here last night. I knew her again as soon as I clapped eyes on her face, but I don’t know as I ever heard her name.”

“This is wonderful, mysterious!” cried the lady. “Oh, what shall I do? It seems too bad to break up the ball with this shocking news, but there seems nothing else to do.”

Sam Cline hesitated, then said humbly:

“If I might make so bold as to advise you, ma’am, I’d say let the ball go on, because it won’t last much longer, anyway, I guess, and see Mr. Bonair yourself before you alarm his sisters.”

“I believe you are right, Sam; I hate to stir up a panic in the ballroom if I can avoid it. Wait outside for me till I get a wrap, and I will go with you to the cottage and see Charley.”

If she had cherished the least doubt of it being her nephew, she soon had proof of it on reaching the keeper’s cottage, for Mrs. Cline had succeeded in reviving the patient, and he lay pale and nervous on a narrow cot in the same room where they had placed the seemingly dead actress upon a neat white bed.

“Charley, dear, this is terrible!” the lady cried, sinking down on her knees and kissing his pallid brow, damp with the dew of pain.

He took the kiss impatiently, crying fervently:

“Aunt Florence, do not think about me! I’m all right, sure!--see about that poor girl over there, please! Is she really dead, or only in a very deep swoon? By Heaven, if Zilla has killed her, I’ll put the brute to torture, I’ll burn her at the stake!”

He ended with a groan of commingled fury and stifled pain, and just then there came a loud rap upon the door. The physician had fortunately arrived.

Chapter XVII. Bitter Rivalry.

He had his hands full certainly, with his two patients, for Charley Bonair insisted that he should examine the young lady first to see if there were the least hope of her recovery from the swoon or unconsciousness that seemed to them all so terribly like death itself.

When Madam Fortescue returned from the cottage two hours later, the grand ball was ending--the “dear five hundred friends” tearing themselves away.

With commendable self-possession she received their adieus, and waited till her weary nieces had got into their dressing gowns before she called them together and imparted her important news.

Lucile and Marie were sadly frightened, and tears flowed fast from their beautiful eyes.

“Poor, dear brother, we must go to him at once,” they cried, but Madam Fortescue forbade it.

“No, the physician wished him to rest quietly to-night in the care of Sam Cline, but you both will be allowed to see him to-morrow. The wound is not necessarily dangerous, but it is better for him to remain a day or two at the cottage before he comes home.”

“And the pretty little actress--Miss Vane. Do you say that she revived?” cried Marie.

“She has shown signs of life, that is all. The poor young girl’s body is a mass of bruises. He did not find any broken bones, however, and says she owes her escape from that to the thick red blanket of the murderous old squaw that fell down on her, and formed with its folds a cushion against the fury of Zilla’s blows.”

The two young girls shuddered with horror over the story. They recalled the bright beauty of the sparkling young actress with keen admiration, and realized the difference now with heartfelt sorrow.

“She must have a good nurse and every possible attention to restore her life. We will charge ourselves with all the expenses, poor girl,” they exclaimed.

And then they fell to wondering about the criminal. Who was she--how had she happened to be at Bonair?

The young girls declared solemnly that they had not employed any fortune teller, had not known of her presence in the house. It was a decided mystery.

“Perhaps the housekeeper may know something about it,” suggested the aunt.

Mrs. Hopson was summoned and cleared up the little mystery.

She told how Miss Montague had called her out while the banquet was in progress, saying that an old Indian fortune teller had called and offered her services to aid in the evening’s entertainment.

Miss Montague was so pleased with the idea that she had engaged the old woman at her own expense to remain two hours and amuse the theatrical company after the banquet. She had asked Mrs. Hopson to prepare the little alcove for the seeress, and to apprise the members of the company of the treat in store for them. Mrs. Hopson had consented to the plan, and Rosalind had left her, after cautioning the housekeeper to say nothing to her mistresses of the little plot, saying she wished to defray all the cost herself.

Mrs. Hopson went on and told of the fright the young actress had received on hearing the story of her future from the old seeress, and of how she had taken her to her own apartments to spend the night, but returned to find her missing.

“It irked me to find her gone, but I never thought of danger to the sweet, pretty young girl,” she declared, adding:

“Now it seems to me that there was some deep-laid plot to injure the young actress. That old Indian woman was very likely a disguised enemy that sought her life. Failing to frighten the girl to death with her terrible prophecies, she got her out of the house some way and pushed her into the pit to meet her death from the angry black bear. When she saw that rescue was likely, she made one last desperate attempt at murder by shooting down among the bears. Oh, the vile wretch, she should be torn limb from limb! No punishment is too great for such a fiend!”

“Yet, I doubt if she will ever be apprehended. She has had ample time to escape and cover up all traces of her identity,” sighed Madam Fortescue, wishing from her heart that the wretch might be brought to justice.

“Oh, how grieved, how dismayed Rosalind will be to hear all this,” cried Lucile, with tears. “Only think, when she was generously planning such a pleasure for those people out of her own purse, she was vilely imposed on by a murderous wretch who nearly destroyed two lives. Why, if dear Charley should die, dear Rosalind would feel like a murderess, although she did not even know that he was in the city.”

“But where was Rosalind all the evening? It seems to me now that I do not remember seeing her at all in the ballroom,” exclaimed Madam Fortescue.

“Why, poor Rosie had a little chapter of accidents that spoiled her whole evening,” answered Marie. “In the first place, she became suddenly ill, soon after the dancing began, and had to retire to her room to lie down a while. It was one of those terrible headaches, you know, that will only get better in a dark, quiet place, so she said we must leave her alone, as she should lock her door and must not be disturbed. Well, something after midnight she returned to the ballroom, and was better, but looking so pale and ill yet that I was surprised to see her dancing again. But pretty soon she came to me all angry and nervous, and I could not blame her at all. Some one had torn a great rent in her white lace gown, and she had to retire, and she said she would not appear again, because she was too tired to change her gown. Poor thing, I hope she will sleep off her sickness by to-morrow, so that she can go with us to see Charley.”

“It will give her a terrible turn to hear of all the mischief that old fortune teller did, but it cannot be helped now,” remarked Mrs. Hopson.

Then they all separated for the night, or rather morning, since it lacked but a few short hours to daylight.

As Miss Montague was the latest of all arising, and took her coffee in her own room, it was very late afternoon before the two sisters came in and told her their startling news.

She was quite as much dismayed as they expected, and when she heard that it was her betrothed, Charley Bonair himself, who had been wounded in the pit, Rosalind fainted away in dead earnest. When she revived she was almost hysterical.

“Do not tell me he is dead, my love, my Charley, or my heart will break!” she moaned in anguish.

When they told her he would get well, that they had been down to the cottage already to see him, and that he was resting easily, she smiled again.

“Oh, I am so glad, so happy, that he is spared to us! But, dear girls, will you not bring him home now, at once? I wish to see him so much! Did he ask for me? Did he send me any message?”

The sisters were so sorry for her that they hated to tell her the truth, that Charley had not even called her name.

But after confessing it they hastened to make excuses for their brother, saying he was so ill and feverish it was no wonder he had temporarily forgotten everything but his own sufferings.

Rosalind accepted their explanation with outward complacence, but the hot fires of jealousy seethed madly in her heart.

To herself she said bitterly:

“He did not ask for me, because he does not care, he thinks only of her, the little witch who stole his fickle heart from me! How strange, how very strange, that he should have been on the spot to save her life! He must have known she would be here, and followed to bask in the light of her eyes. Oh, how I hate her! Why does she not die, why should she live to balk me of my happiness, for the whole world is too narrow for my rival and me!”

In her angry thoughts she almost forgot the presence of the sisters, and they were startled by the lowering frown upon her face, realizing that she was bitterly disappointed at getting no message from Charley.

They hastened to tell her that the physician would not permit him to leave his bed yet, but that they would accompany her at any time to see her lover, assuring her that he would be charmed with the visit.

Rosalind believed quite otherwise, but she kept back the bitter words between her lips, resolving to go, indeed, to visit him, and to hurry up their marriage if she could, before the pretty actress got well.

Of the poor girl hovering between life and death, and all unconscious of her surroundings, she said not a word in pity, and when she was asked about the Indian seeress who had wrought such woe, she declared that she had never seen her before that night, and knew nothing of her whereabouts.

“Oh, I hope none of you will blame me for what she did!” Rosalind cried artlessly. “I am not to blame, for I only thought to give pleasure. The woman came to me as I leaned out of a window, and proffered her wish, and I immediately granted it. How was I to know that at heart she was a fiend?”

Chapter XVIII. A Friend In Need.

Rosalind’s sorrow, so prettily acted, had its due effect. Her friends quickly acquitted her of all blame, and hastened to soothe her ruffled feelings by praising the good intentions that had prompted her terrible mistake.

The Bonairs hated anything like notoriety, and they tried very hard to keep the sensational events of that night out of the newspapers.

But their efforts failed of success, and the reporters reaped a rich harvest.

When the manager of Berry’s company came the next day to inquire for his missing star, he was astounded to learn through the voluble housekeeper of the tragedy of the previous night.

He went quite white, and trembled with the shock, and as he was rather young and very handsome, Mrs. Hopson surmised that he must be the young girl’s lover, and pitied him very much.

He cried out hoarsely:

“Barely alive, you say, with but one chance in a hundred for her life? Oh, how terrible! I can scarcely credit it, unless I see her with my own eyes!”

He went from the mansion to the cottage, and Mrs. Cline permitted him to see the poor, unconscious girl upon the bed, breathing so faintly that it seemed as if every pulsation must be her last.

“Dying, poor girl, dying! And I loved her, oh, I loved her better than my life!” the man cried, sinking on his knees by the bed, and pressing his lips to the cold little hand that lay outside the cover.

“Then you were going to marry the poor young lady?” asked Mrs. Cline.

“No, for she had rejected my suit, telling me she had loved once and her faith had been destroyed forever. She was very unhappy, I know, over her broken lovedream, but I still hoped on, believing that in time she might forget her false lover and turn to me. In all our leading parts I was cast as her lover, and I threw my whole soul into everything, hoping to win her at last. Alas! all is over, and her sweet life has fallen beneath the machinations of a cowardly enemy,” the man moaned, staggering up to his feet, with a look of despair that touched the woman’s heart.

“I am so sorry for you, sir,” she murmured, putting the corner of her white apron to her eyes, that were wet with tears.

He thanked her with a look, and added:

“While she lives, Mrs. Cline, see that she receives the best of attention, and look to me to settle all expenses to--the last!” his voice breaking over the word.

“Oh, sir, the Bonairs have already pledged themselves to pay everything. A trained nurse is coming within the hour, and the physician will be in frequently,” she replied.

“May I see Mr. Bonair? Will you take my card to him?” asked the manager.

She assented, and he was kept waiting some time, while she related to Charley Bonair every word he had uttered, faithfully describing the emotion he had displayed.

Charley Bonair was lying on his couch very pale and restless, and he grew almost ghastly as the tale ran on.

“That will do, you may bring him in,” he said, at last.

The next moment:

“Ah, Mr. Bonair, will you pardon this intrusion?”

“You are welcome, Mr. Weston. Pray be seated,” Charley answered quietly, gazing hard at his handsome rival.

Truly he was handsome and manly, with that dark, flashing eye that so easily wins its way to a woman’s heart. Charley Bonair wondered jealously that Berry had been able to withstand its fascination.

“Dear little one, surely she loved me well,” he thought, with a twinge of the bitterest remorse and pain.

The manager had somewhat recovered his self-possession that had wavered in the presence of his dying love. He did not give way as before Mrs. Cline, but conversed easily and with a sorrowful dignity that impressed the hearer, against his wishes, with profound respect.

“A dangerous rival, and perhaps more worthy of her than I am,” Bonair said to himself, with a sweeping self-contempt new and withering.

If she lived, poor little Berry, who could tell but that such devotion might win her at last?--but he groaned aloud at the thought.

“Your pardon. A twinge of pain in that confounded shoulder,” he explained.

“Permit me to praise your acting last night,” he added. “It was superb, and, in fact, your company is an admirable one.”

“I thank you, but we are almost ruined now by this terrible happening. No woman in my company is capable of taking the leading part at short notice. I shall arrange to pay the company a week’s salary in advance, and disband for an indefinite time.”

“You must permit me to assist in the financial part; I feel it my duty, and will make it my pleasure. I cannot forget that the disaster came to you through your appearance at my home last night,” the wounded man said cordially.

But the manager declined the offer with a proud, though gentle, dignity, winning more and more Bonair’s respect.

“I thank you, sir, but I must decline your offer, since I am amply able to meet these expenses,” he said, adding after a moment’s hesitation:

“Whatever you may choose to spend in tracing Miss Vane’s cowardly murderer will be well spent.”

“No expense will be spared for that,” Bonair promised, growing so pale again that the visitor felt he was staying too long, and took a courteous and sympathetic leave.

It was a nine days’ wonder in the papers, and the reporters “worked the story for all it was worth.” Meanwhile the Weston Company became so interesting to the general public that the next cleverest actress studied Berry’s part, and the new play, “A Wayside Flower,” ran successfully for weeks upon the boards of a popular theater.

All this time Berry was lingering between life and death from the terrible pounding Zilla had given her in the bear pit, but at last the wavering balance began to incline toward life, gladdening many anxious hearts, but filling one, alas, with malignant hate.

For Rosalind’s jealous hatred waxed hotter every day, and could she have found a chance to be alone in that sick room for five minutes, it is hard to say what might have happened.

But a young princess could not have been guarded with more loving care than the poor little actress, and it was all through Charley Bonair that this was so.

He employed two competent nurses for the sick room, and one or the other was ordered to remain always in the girl’s apartment.

“We must remember always that she has a cruel and unscrupulous enemy thirsting for her young life,” he said. “That enemy may be hovering about, watching for an opportunity to complete her murderous work. She must be foiled in her terrible designs,” he said firmly, and Rosalind, who heard the words, turned aside to hide a cruel sneer that parted her crimson lips.

She was disappointed in all her crafty little schemes for entrapping him into marriage before Berry recovered. It was plainer to her than ever that she had lost every hold she had upon him, and she dreaded every day that he would ask for a release from his engagement.

Rosalind said to herself that when that happened she was afraid she would go mad of her anger and despair.

A jilted bride! How could she bear the stigma, how turn aside the jeers of her little carping world?

“I cannot, I will not release him if he dares plead to me. I will hold him to his promise, and he dare not back down!” she vowed bitterly.

Charley Bonair’s convalescence was so slow that every one became uneasy, not dreaming that he played a deceitful part in order to remain as long as he could beneath the same roof with Berry. Besides, as he said to himself, he could hold Rosalind off better that way. Though she came every day with his sisters to visit him, he frequently pretended to be too ill or nervous to receive them till at last his doctor rallied him soundly.

“What game is it you are playing, Bonair? You were well enough two weeks ago.”

Before Bonair left at last, the nurses permitted him to sit a half hour in Berry’s room watching her as she slept, with the dark silken lashes prone upon her snowy cheek, and the breath just stirring the white folds of her breast.

The sight went to his heart, stirring it with profound emotion, so that he said to himself:

“How can I dream of ever wedding any but this beautiful creature, my soul’s true mate? She must be mine alone; I must break with Rosalind!”

Chapter XIX. The Old Love.

“I must break with Rosalind! I can wed no other than sweet little Berry, my soul’s true mate!” Bonair cried passionately, again to his own heart, when he was back in his palatial home, leaving Berry at the lowly cottage of the zoo keeper.

All the puerile questions of wealth and position that had held them apart became dross in his eyes, swept away in the torrent of a love that would no longer brook opposition to its restless force.

Perhaps jealousy of Berry’s handsome lover, young Weston, added fuel to the fire of his love, but it began to burn with a consuming flame that destroyed everything in its path. A gifted poet has fitly portrayed the state of his mind:

When the court of the mind is ruled by reason, I know it is wiser for us to part; But love is a spy who is plotting treason, In league with that warm, red rebel, the heart. They whisper to me that the king is cruel, That his reign is wicked, his law a sin, And every word they utter is fuel To the flame that smolders within.

His dread of Rosalind’s grief and anger seemed to vanish before the new force of his passion for Berry, and he said to himself grimly that he must have it out with Rosalind, and be done with it. It was best to “be off with the old love” before he was “on with the new.”

The opportunity came soon.

His sister Marie privately lectured him on his indifference to his betrothed.

“How can you be so cruel to poor Rose? You treat her like a stranger.”

“Has she complained of me?” he asked evasively.

“How can she help it? The dear girl is miserable at heart, although she bears up bravely. You know every one is caviling because the wedding day is not set. Why don’t you settle it once for all, Charley, dear?”

Her coaxing arms were round his neck, her bright eyes beaming into his, and he sighed:

“Girls are always dead set on weddings! I don’t see why! I think them great bores myself!”

“Then why don’t you get yours over and be done with it?” persisted the girl.

“Oh, I am not in any hurry to lose my bachelor freedom, sis; I fancy Rose would henpeck me dreadfully,” yawning.

“She would not, I’m sure--that is if you behave yourself, sir! Of course you would have to give up some of your bad habits if you were a married man--flirting, for instance--and--and--drinking! You are a little too fond of the winecup, aren’t you, now?”

“Yes--if you say so,” he replied nonchalantly, taking his lecture coolly, and adding: “I wonder if Rose is going to write out a list of musts and must nots for me to sign on the wedding day; do you know?”

“Oh, nonsense! Go and ask her if you want to know! She’s in the library now, half crying because a girl asked her if her wedding would be soon, otherwise she wanted her to make one of a house party at her home this fall. Don’t you see how embarrassing the uncertainty is, Charley?”

“Yes, I see. We must have an understanding about it,” he replied, with a sudden gravity that emboldened her to add:

“Only yesterday Rosalind refused a proposal that was exceptional, in every way, and when she told me of it she half sighed: ‘He’s very nice, and if I had not been engaged to Charley, I might have said yes.’”

“It isn’t too late to call him back. I’ll tell her she may do so!” he exclaimed eagerly.

Marie pinched his ear and laughed:

“Getting jealous, are you, old boy? Well, you see, there are others who admire Rose beside yourself.”

“Yes, I see,” he replied, getting up carelessly, and moving to the door.

“You’re going to Rosalind?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes, I will not delay speaking to her any longer,” he replied, going out as he spoke, and getting a glass of wine to steady himself, for he owned to himself he was a little bit nervous, thinking uneasily.

“She’ll make no end of a scene, of course--maybe call me a cur and all that. The sooner it’s over, the better.”

Fortified with several glasses of wine, he wended his way to the library.

Rosalind was there, sure enough, exquisitely gowned in some soft green fabric, with loads of lace trimming, that was very becoming to her blond type and she reclined rather pensively in a large leather chair.

Chapter XX. Fate Willed Otherwise.

“Ah, Charley, it is you. I am so glad, for you were just now in my thoughts!” cried Rosalind, beaming up at him with a tender smile.

Charley throwing himself down carelessly into the opposite chair, returned lightly:

“Very complimentary, I am sure, for I fancied you were thinking of the other fellow.”

She wrinkled her brows at him.

“The other fellow?”

“Yes, you know, Rosalind--the one who was so nice you would have accepted his proposal if you hadn’t been engaged to me.”

“So Marie told you that nonsense, Charley! Ha! ha! Of course it was only a jest!” laughed Rosalind, looking up at him with arch blue eyes, full of tenderness.

Charley Bonair did not return the fond glance, he looked at her with serious gravity, unmoved by all her coquettish beauty and rich attire. He answered frankly:

“I am sorry to hear that it was a jest. I hoped it was truth.”

“Charley!”

“Yes, I hoped it was true,” he reiterated gravely, “because I came in here to tell you it was not too late to call him back.”

“Oh, Charley!” reproachfully.

“Honor bright,” he answered, still without smiling, and adding nervously, “oh, Rosalind, can’t you see that he would be a better match for you than I, because he loves you, while I--I, in spite of myself, have grown cold, careless, indifferent to you!”

“Cruel! Cruel!” sobbed the girl, behind her jeweled fingers.

“Yes, I know it, dear, but I cannot help it. I tried to be true to you, but fate willed otherwise, and I’ve struggled too long! I give it up for useless now. Despise me if you will, I deserve it, I know, and I don’t blame you. But, Rosalind, if you held me to my promise I couldn’t make you happy. I should hate you, instead of loving you. There, the bitter truth is out! Will you set me free?”

“It might not be as easy for me as for you, Charley. I am not so fickle-minded, perhaps, but I suppose I have a right to ask you one question!”

“Oh, yes, go on,” he said.

“It is only this, Charley, dear: Has your heart only wandered from me, or is there--some one else?”

His handsome face flushed a little under her sorrowful glances, but he answered bravely:

“Forgive me for hurting you, Rosalind, but I will not deceive. Yes, you have guessed the truth. There is some one else!”

Rosalind sighed heavily:

“It is worse than I thought. Indifference might be cured if I had no rival, but this is hopeless. Oh, Charley, who is she, the girl who has won your love from me? Her name?”

“Rosalind, I would rather not tell you yet.”

“That is unfair to me, Charley, very unfair!” bitterly. “Surely I have a deep interest in my successful rival. Does she love you?”

“I hope so.”

“Then you have not asked her yet?”

“I waited for my release from you.”

“Oh, then, you will ask her now, at once! Is she near at hand, Charley, or perhaps I should say, Mr. Bonair, now?”

“Call me Charley always if you will, and let us be true friends, my dear girl, instead of lovers,” he pleaded, with outstretched hands.

Rosalind placed her cold little hand eagerly in his, and answered:

“This is very sudden, and very hard on me, Charley, because I have loved you dearly for a year, and looked forward with joy to a life spent by your side. Before I promise to release you, grant me one favor.”

“Name it, Rosalind.”

“You have not asked your new love yet, and you are not sure she will love you in return?”

“I am reasonably sure,” he said, with the confidence of a sanguine mind.

“How long will it be before you can have your answer?”

“A week--perhaps two,” he replied, suddenly remembering that Berry was yet precariously ill.

“Then this is what I ask you, Charley, dear--yes, still dear, despite the wound in my heart. Keep our secret until you have your new love’s acceptance of your suit. Let us remain to the world lovers still, until you are plighted to another. Then I will release you from your vow.”

“It shall be as you say,” he answered, so grateful for her promise of release, that he did not think it mattered going on with the farce of an engagement a while longer.

“If it will make it any less painful for you, Rose, you can say you jilted me, you know. I shouldn’t mind at all!”

“Thank you--I will think it over,” she answered dejectedly, and the last glimpse he had of her was just as she hid her face in her hands again and sat silent, like a statue of despair.

He went immediately down to the keeper’s cottage, as he did every day, for news of Berry, and his heart leaped with joy when Mrs. Cline told him there was a marked change for the better, and the invalid had begun to take notice and to try to talk a little.

“When the doctor came this morning he was so pleased with the improvement, he said she was quite sure to get well now,” she said.

“Thank Heaven!” he cried fervently, and after a momentary hesitation, he added earnestly:

“Mrs. Cline, do me one favor, and I will never forget it. If that fellow, Weston, comes to see her again, do not admit him to see the patient. Tell him she is improving, but can see no one.”

“I’ll do as you say, sir, but Lor’ bless you, some of them actor folks comes here every day to ask about her.”

“But remember, I wish to be the first one admitted to her presence when she is able to see any one,” he replied.

Chapter XXI. The Happy Meeting.

But April had succeeded March before Berry was fairly convalescent.

A long and weary month she had lain upon that bed of pain before life struggled back for certain into her weary, battered frame, and the light of memory shone again in her big, pathetic brown eyes.

Then she began to get well very fast, and to betray a great curiosity over everything, asking questions that the doctor said might be freely answered.

So before she was permitted to see any one but her nurses, she knew all there was to tell--that Charley Bonair, the millionaire senator’s only son, had rescued her from Bruin’s clutches at the peril of his own life, and that the mysterious assailant had put a ball in his shoulder as he bent over her in the pit.

“Do not tell me he was killed,” sobbed Berry.

Mrs. Cline laughed reassuringly.

“Not a bit of it, my dear young lady, although Heaven only knows what might have happened only for Sam and me coming up just then and scaring off the vile woman that sought your death, for she might have shot again and again. But we chased her away, and opened the door of the pit, and found the bears in an awful uproar, and there’s no telling what might have happened next, only that we got you both out as quick as possible and brought you to our house. Laws, Mr. Bonair only had a bullet in his shoulder, and the doctor soon got it out, but he stayed here two weeks, afraid to be moved home, and even now he comes down every day to ask after you, always bringing fresh flowers to decorate your room. A mighty good heart has Mr. Charley.”

Berry lay gazing at the fragrant flowers on the table, a dreamy light in her great brown eyes, a faint flush staining her pallid cheeks.

She was thinking how strange and sad it was that their paths had crossed again so tragically--hers and handsome, wicked Charley Bonair’s.

She called him wicked, because she remembered vividly the night of their moonlight ride, when he had asked her for her heart without her hand--oh, the shame of it--promising she should be his sweetheart even if he married Rosalind! Back over Berry’s mind, in a flood tide of grief, rushed the memory of his burning kiss, and her wild words when she had flung his roses back