Transcriber’s Notes:

The Table of Contents was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

CONTENTS

Chapter I. When Poverty Enters the Door.

Chapter II. Sixteen Years Later.

Chapter III. A Young Girl’s First Thought.

Chapter IV. The Winning of a Heart.

Chapter V. The First Kiss.

Chapter VI. Fate’s Decree.

Chapter VII. The Beautiful Rivals.

Chapter VIII. “She Shall Be Mine?”

Chapter IX. An Hour to Be Remembered.

Chapter X. The Ending of Her Love Dream.

Chapter XI. A Breaking Heart.

Chapter XII. An Evil Omen.

Chapter XIII. Forsaken at the Altar.

Chapter XIV. Waves of Memory.

Chapter XV. Forgetfulness, the Great Panacea.

Chapter XVI. When a Man Hates.

Chapter XVII. Dalrymple’s Secret.

Chapter XVIII. Laurier’s Atonement.

Chapter XIX. The New Wine of Love.

Chapter XX. Would the Old Love Return?

Chapter XXI. Playing With Fire.

Chapter XXII. A Desperate Deed.

Chapter XXIII. A Mysterious Disappearance.

Chapter XXIV. “Love, I Will Love You Ever!”

Chapter XXV. An Answered Prayer.

Chapter XXVI. An Ocean Tragedy.

Chapter XXVII. “I Loved Her Always.”

Chapter XXVIII. Was a Miracle Wrought?

Chapter XXIX. Alone Together.

Chapter XXX. A Heart of Sympathy.

Chapter XXXI. How Could He Lose Her Thus?

Chapter XXXII. The Heart of a Lover.

Chapter XXXIII. The Blackmailer.

Chapter XXXIV. “A Breaking Heart,” She Said.

Chapter XXXV. “Billing and Cooing Will Wait.”

Chapter XXXVI. “How Was It That Love Died?”

Chapter XXXVII. Startling News.

Chapter XXXVIII. Love Rekindled.

Chapter XXXIX. Hearts United.

Chapter XL. Deeds of Kindness.

Chapter XLI. Happiness Supreme.

Chapter XLII. Iris and Isabel.

Chapter XLIII. The Outcast.

Chapter XLIV. A Cruel Ordeal.

Chapter XLV. Entering on the New Life.

Chapter XLVI. The Unforgotten Face.

Chapter XLVII. Treachery.

Chapter XLVIII. A Cruel Stratagem.

Chapter XLIX. The Child of an Escaped Convict.

Chapter L. Sundered Hearts.

Chapter LI. Oscar Hilton’s Triumph.

Chapter LII. Another Enemy.

Chapter LIII. Hidden Perils.

Chapter LIV. In the Toils.

Chapter LV. Isabel’s Betrothal.

Chapter LVI. A Cruel Suspicion.

Chapter LVII. Homeless and Alone.

Chapter LVIII. The Arrest.

Chapter LIX. “Good-by.”

Chapter LX. Conclusion.

NEW EAGLE SERIES No. 943

Let Us Kiss and Part

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

STREET & SMITH PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Let Us Kiss and Part;

OR, A SHATTERED TIE

BY Mrs. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

Author of “Pretty Madcap Lucy,” “The Fatal Kiss,” “Loyal Unto Death,” “The Strength of Love,” “Lady Gay’s Pride,” and many other romances of American life published exclusively in the Eagle and New Eagle Series.

NEW YORK STREET & SMITH, Publishers 79-89 Seventh Avenue

Copyright, 1897-1898 By STREET & SMITH

Let Us Kiss and Part

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.

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[5]

LET US KISS AND PART.

CHAPTER I. WHEN POVERTY ENTERS THE DOOR.

To love and hate in the same breath, it is as cruel as a tragedy.

Leon and Verna Dalrymple knew all that subtle pain as they faced each other in the cold, gray light of that autumn day whereon they were parting forever.

It was not simply a lovers’ quarrel, either.

The pity of it was that they were husband and wife, both very young, both very fond, but driven apart by unreasoning pride and passion.

The husband was twenty-one years old, the bride but seventeen—a case of “marry in haste, repent at leisure.”

Six months ago the bride, sole daughter of a wealthy family, had eloped from boarding school with a poor young man, a teacher of music.

For her fault the daughter had been cast off by her parents, and the young man dismissed from the school where he taught. Unable to secure another position, misfortune had steadily tracked his footsteps until he could scarcely afford bread for himself and the fair, dainty bride.

Having rushed into marriage without thought for the future, misfortune soured their naturally hasty tempers, and when the fierce wolf of poverty came in at the door love flew out of the window.

[6]

They could scarcely have told how it all began, but at last they were quarreling most bitterly. There were mutual recriminations and fault-findings, that increased in virulence until one day, goaded by Verna’s reproaches, Leon cried out in hot resentment:

“I regret that I ever saw you!”

“I hate you!” she replied, with a scornful flash of her great, somber, dark eyes, and whether the words were true or not, she never took them back—neither one ever professed sorrow for angry words or begged forgiveness. The husband, hurt by her sneers, pained by her reproaches, and inwardly wounded by his inability to provide for her better, took refuge in sullen silence that she resented by downright sulking. She was furious at his unkindness, disgusted with her poverty, and unconsciously ill of a trouble she did not suspect, so the breach widened between their hearts until one day she said with rigid white lips and somber, angry eyes:

“I am tired of starving and freezing here where I am not wanted! I shall go home and beg papa to forgive my folly and get me a divorce from you.”

The awful words were spoken and they fell on his heart like hailstones, but though he grew pale as death and his whole frame trembled, he feigned the cruelest indifference, saying bitterly:

“You could not please me better!”

So the die was cast.

Perhaps she had wished to test his love, perhaps she hoped that the fear of losing her might beat down the armor of his stubborn pride and make him sue for a reconciliation.

[7]

Whatever she might have secretly desired, his answer was a deathblow to her hopes.

At his words a strange look flashed into her large, dark eyes, and for a moment her red mouth quivered like a child’s at an unexpected blow. But she swallowed a choking sob, and the next moment her young face grew rigid as a mask.

Rising slowly from her seat, she put on her hat, caught up a small hand satchel from the floor, and passed silently from the poor apartment.

If only she had turned her fair, haughty head for one backward glance—if only——

For his passionate heart had almost leaped from his breast in the terror of his loss.

Anger, pride, and pique were forgotten alike in the supreme anguish of that moment’s despair.

As she turned away he stretched his arms out yearningly, whispering with stiff, white lips that could scarcely frame the words:

“Darling, come back!”

Had she only looked back, her heart would have melted with tenderness at sight of his grief. She would have fallen, sobbing, on his breast.

But she never turned her proud, dark head; she did not catch the yearning whisper, and his arms dropped heavily to his sides again, while the echo of her retreating footsteps fell like a death knell on his heart.

Angry and estranged, they had parted to go their separate ways forever, and the stream of destiny rolled in widely between their sundered lives, thus wrenched violently heart from heart.

To be born to the heritage of such beauty, pride,[8] and passion, is not altogether goodly—yet, it is the daughter of this strangely parted pair whom I have chosen for my heroine, for in four months after Verna Dalrymple left her husband she became the mother of a lovely daughter—a girl that in its dainty beauty possessed the blond fairness of the father, the dark, dreamy eyes and proud, beautiful mouth of the brunet mother.

[9]

CHAPTER II. SIXTEEN YEARS LATER.

“Sister Jessie, I am so hungry. Please give me some bread!” sobbed the pleading voice of a little child, clinging to the skirts of the young house mother, a dark-eyed girl of sixteen.

“I’se hungry, too. I want my bekfus!” sobbed a still younger child, petulantly, and for answer Jessie stooped down and gathered both the little boys into her yearning arms, crying tremulously:

“Wait a little while, my darlings, and sister Jessie will go and try to get you some bread!”

Oh! what a tale of wretchedness was told by the bare, fireless room and the pinched faces and hollow eyes of the three children, the girl of sixteen, the boys of six and four, respectively. It was midday, but they had not tasted food for twenty-four hours, and the cupboard was empty of the smallest crust. It was a chilly November day, but the small stove was fireless, though their thin, ragged garments were insufficient to keep out the biting cold.

Jessie kissed the wan, tear-wet faces of her hungry little brothers, then stood up again and looked round the room to see if there was anything left worthy the attention of the old pawnbroker on the corner.

A choking sob escaped the girl’s lips:

“Alas, there is nothing but trash! The little purse is empty, and the rent unpaid for two months. What shall we do?”

[10]

A loud rap on the door gave her a violent start, and she sprang to open it, exclaiming piteously:

“They have come again for the rent!”

She was confronted by a medium-sized young man, good-looking in a coarse style with red cheeks, keen, black eyes, and close-cropped, black hair, dressed flashily, with a long, gold watch chain dangling across his breast.

Staring curiously into the room and at the girl, he demanded:

“Is John Lyndon at home?”

“He is not.”

“Where is his wife, then, hey?”

A sob came from all three of the children, but no reply until a little, motherly looking woman suddenly pushed past the young man into the room, exclaiming:

“Arrah, now, how dare ye break the hearts av thim by yer impidence, axin for their mither, and herself dead of a faver six months ago!”

“Ah, and the father?”

“Poor sowl, they took him to the hospital, a month ago, hurt by an accident, and he died there but yesterday. I just came in to take the childer to git the last look at his dead face before they bury him at the city’s expinse.”

“Ah, very sorry, I’m sure, but, of course, now the rent will never be paid, and I was sent here to bring a dispossess warrant, so I may as well read it for the benefit of the children.”

And he coolly proceeded to do so, apparently unmoved by the sad story of death and disaster he had just heard.

[11]

Then he beckoned to two rough-looking men who had been standing in the hallway. They came up at once, and at a motion of the hand from the dispossess officer, they began at once to move the few shabby household effects into the street.

Painful sobs burst from the hapless orphans, but the little Irishwoman, with the calmness of one long familiar with the stern face of poverty, said to them gently:

“You see, dears, ye are turned into the street. Have yees any friends to take yees in?”

Jessie answered forlornly:

“We have an aunt, a dressmaker, in a distant part of the city. She was papa’s sister, but he would never let her know that we were so poor after he lost his steady job, saying she had troubles enough of her own.”

“Av coorse she will help yees, when she knows about your troubles, poor things, so now come to my room and have a little snack before we start to the hospital,” said Mrs. Ryan tenderly, marshaling the orphans past the dispossess agent, who remarked insinuatingly:

“The oldest girl’s big enough to go out and earn her own living, and if her aunt won’t take her to keep, I know of a situation she can get as parlormaid with a very nice lady.”

“Thank you kindly, but I hope she won’t need it,” returned Mrs. Ryan curtly, as she led the little flock to her own poor apartment where she fed them on the best she could afford, weak tea, baker’s stale bread, and a bit of cheese, but a feast to the famishing orphans whose thanks brought tears to her kind eyes.

[12]

Afterward she took them to look their last on the face of their dead before he was consigned to his grave among the city’s pauper dead, poor soul, the victim of penury and misfortune. Then she led them weeping away to their aunt, Mrs. Godfrey, who heard with grief of her poor brother’s death and looked with pity on his orphan children.

She said plaintively:

“I’m a lone widow with a sick daughter and no support but my needle, but, of course, I cannot turn John’s children out into the cold world. I’ll take Mark and Willie and do the best I can by them, but as for Jessie, she is old enough to go out and work for herself. Besides, she has no claim on me, as she was not my brother’s child!”

“Not papa’s child!” almost shrieked Jessie, in her astonishment, and Mrs. Godfrey, looking ready to faint under the burden of her new responsibilities, replied:

“No, you were only the niece of my brother’s wife, though she brought you up as her own child, and loved you just as well.”

Mrs. Ryan questioned eagerly:

“Are Jessie’s own parents living?”

“The Lord only knows,” was the answer, and, seeing the anxiety on their faces, Mrs. Godfrey continued:

“You see, it was this way: Jessie’s father and mother were divorced when they hadn’t been married more than seven months or so, and afterward their child was born, and when it was a few years old the father in a fit of rage stole Jessie away from her[13] mother and brought her to his sister to raise as her own. He went away and for years sent money liberally to keep and educate the child, but at last letters and money both stopped suddenly, and ’twas supposed he was dead. The Lyndons kept Jessie all the same, and did the best they could, but misfortunes began to come and death followed—so everything came to this pass. I’ll say it for Jess, she’s a good child, but I’m too poor to keep her, so she will have to look for a situation.”

“I’ve heard of one already, so I will take her back and try to get it for her. Bid your little brothers good-by, dear,” said Mrs. Ryan gently, in her pity for the forlorn girl, who now turned to Mrs. Godfrey, faltering:

“Maybe you can tell me where to find my mother?”

“I can’t, my dear, for now I remember I never heard her name, nor your pa’s, neither. You always went by the name of Lyndon, and was considered their child, so you will have to go on calling yourself Lyndon till you find out better. Maybe your ma wasn’t a good woman, anyway, or she wouldn’t had to be divorced.”

Cruel was the parting between Jessie and the little ones, but with kisses and tears, and promises to come again, the desolate girl was hurried away to her fate—every link broken between her and the past, her brain on fire, her heart aching, her future a chaos that no hope could pierce.

“If I could only find my mother!” she sighed to Mrs. Ryan.

“Sure, darlint, don’t fix your heart on her, for she must have been a bad woman indade, or your father[14] wouldn’t have stole ye away and put ye in his sister’s care. Arrah, now, I’m thinking of what the dispossess agent said about knowing of a good place for ye to stay as parlormaid. And good luck to ye, darlint; there he is in front of the tiniment now, having the old sticks of your furniture moved, bad cess to his eyes! But then ag’in, ’tain’t his fault. He was sint by the landlord to do it, and can’t help himself, so why should we be hard on him, thin! Och, if you plaze, sir, we would like to have the address of the good lady as you said would take Jessie for a parlormaid.”

The agent’s face beamed with surprise and delight, and, hastily drawing a card from his pocket, he presented it, saying:

“There’s the address, and just tell the lady I sent you, and I know she will give Miss Lyndon the place,” beaming on the girl in a way that made her shrink and shudder.

“Why, ’tis the old fortune teller in the next street,” said Mrs. Ryan, surveying the dingy card that read:

“Know your fate and fortune. Consult Madame Barto, scientific palmist, No. 16A West Twenty-third Street. Hours between ten and four daily. Fee one dollar.”

[15]

CHAPTER III. A YOUNG GIRL’S FIRST THOUGHT.

Madame Barto’s ideas of a parlormaid seemed rather confused, for her gloomy little brick house had no occupants save herself and Jessie, and before business hours in the morning she and Jessie did up all the household work, after which they separated, madame to sit in her dingy parlor and read detective stories in the intervals of waiting for customers, and Jessie to wait in a tiny anteroom off the hall to answer the doorbell.

The first thing that morning madame had gone out and bought her maid a neat, black gown finished with black and white ribbons, at neck and waist, and a neat little pair of buttoned boots that made quite an improvement in her appearance.

“This comes in advance out of your first month’s salary, and I think you will agree I am very generous to trust you,” she said frankly.

“I am very grateful, madame,” faltered the girl shyly, for she stood greatly in awe of the tall, dark, homely fortune teller, with her stern face and grenadierlike walk.

“See that you prove so,” the woman said dryly, adding, as she seized the girl’s hand and turned the pink palm to the light: “Let us see what fate has in store for such a pretty girl.”

“Shall I ever be married?” queried Jessie timidly, and Madame Barto laughed:

[16]

“Ha, ha, the first thought of a young girl—‘shall I ever be married?’ Yes, yes, pretty one. I can promise you a husband for certain! Girls like you—so lovely and naïve—are very sure to marry, for the men will not give them any peace. But you’ll repent it afterward if you’re like most women. I know, for marriage is a lottery, and more blanks are drawn than prizes.”

“I am sorry. I thought love must be so sweet,” said the girl with a little, unconscious sigh.

“Poor thing!” answered the woman, with a half sneer, her keen, deep-set eyes following the lines of the delicate palm while she pursued:

“I see dark clouds lowering over your life—and the line of life is strangely crossed. I foresee tragic elements in your future. The chances of happiness are against you, but you may possibly overcome these adverse influences. Let us hope so. Otherwise——” she paused, looked keenly at the girl, and exclaimed:

“You will not thank me if I tell you any more. What is the use, anyway? You will find it out soon enough yourself. These people who pay me a dollar for reading the future, what fools they are! If they wait they will know it for nothing!”

Jessie hung her golden head in cruel disappointment, having hoped that a good fortune might have been promised from the reading of her little hand, while the madame continued briskly:

“Come, now, you will sit here in the anteroom with this bit of sewing until the doorbell rings, then you will answer it, usher the caller in here, and come to me for instructions. Will you remember this?”

[17]

“Oh, yes, madame,” sitting down obediently with the roll of ruffling madame had given her to hemstitch, eager to be alone with her sad thoughts.

Sad they were, indeed, poor Jessie, thus wrenched from all she had known and loved in the past, and thrown alone on the world, to face the untried future.

At the clanging of the doorbell she started quickly to her feet with a strange, inexplicable throb of the heart.

She flew out into the hall and turned the doorknob to admit the caller.

Had she guessed that it was the little god Cupid knocking, would she have unbarred the door?

Alas! destiny is strong. We could not shirk it if we would.

The fair little hand shot back the bolt and turned the doorknob.