SLIGHTED LOVE

OR

At Her Heart’s Expense

By MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

Author of “They Looked and Loved,” “When We Two Parted,” “All for Love,” etc.

Printed in the U. S. A.

STREET & SMITH PUBLICATIONS, Inc.

PUBLISHERS

79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.

[Pg 5]

CHAPTER I.

A MOTHER’S CONFESSION.

Italy Vale! When you heard her name you associated it with blue skies, with orange-groves, and rippling streams; when you saw her face you thought of music and poetry and flowers; of dusky pansies like her somber eyes; of pale-pink roses like her cheeks; of scarlet geraniums like her lips; of young palm-trees that were not more graceful than her slender form, and of the purple bloom of the grape that seemed to linger on her dark, waving tresses—but it was not beneath tropic skies you found her, but on a flat, sandy, wind-swept beach of bleak Massachusetts, at Winthrop-by-the-Sea, a brilliant, dusky-eyed, foreign-looking girl, like some rare-plumaged, tropical bird alighted on an alien shore.

She was young, she was maddeningly lovely, this girl, and but a few months before she had knelt beneath the blossoming limes in an old Italian garden, and looking up with dark, pathetic eyes into the pale, fair face above her, had murmured anxiously:

[Pg 6]

“Mama, why do we lead so lonely a life? Why do people seem to shun us? What have we done?”

The mother’s soft blue eyes had filled with tears as she faltered:

“So you have seen it, my darling? I can no longer hide from you our desolation.”

“No, mama, for now I am seventeen years old, and can reason quite like a woman. I have seen what I have told you—that we two are alone in the world together, friendless and seemingly shunned. We rove from clime to clime like two restless ghosts, yet everywhere some dark shadow of destiny follows us. We seem to be known and remarked even in places that are strange to us. As for you, I comprehend that you are bitterly unhappy, for I have never seen a smile upon your lips. Mama, why is it so? Why are we branded and set apart from the rest of the world?”

The blue-eyed mother sobbed bitterly:

“The moment I have dreaded so long has come at last. I must confess the truth to my child. God grant her strength to bear the cross.”

She kissed the eager, upturned face, and her tears fell on its wondrous beauty.

“Oh, my love, my love, how cruel Fate has been to us!” she cried. “I might have been so happy, and you might have reigned like a little queen, but, alas, alas! one dark moment of horror changed both our lives—turned sunshine to darkness, happiness to despair.”

[Pg 7]

The girl’s white arms, that were a very poem of beauty, encircled the drooping form, the red lips kissed the tears away, and the sweet voice murmured tenderly:

“And you have not deserved that the winds of Fate should blow roughly upon you, my dearest one.”

“God bless you for those loving words, my child. Oh, what a treasure is your faith and love! May they not fail me when you learn of the shadow that has darkened your life and mine,” sighed Mrs. Vale, and, after a moment, she added falteringly:

“Italy, dear, you have been told that your father died in your early childhood, but you have never known what I must tell you now. He—my poor husband—was—murdered!”

“Oh, Heaven!” and Italy’s dark, silken head dropped half-fainting upon her mother’s knee, her eyes closed upon the blue Italian landscape that seemed blurred by a strange mist.

Mrs. Vale’s thin, blue-veined hand fell in tender caressing upon the dark curls.

“Be brave, dear, for there is more to tell, and it is so horrible,” she sobbed. “Oh, Italy, I, your mother, his cherished wife, was accused of my husband’s murder, and tried for my life!”

“Oh, Heaven!” again sobbed the girl, and a convulsive shudder passed over the kneeling form.

Mrs. Vale shuddered, too, and after a moment added brokenly:

“Tried and acquitted.”

[Pg 8]

Italy half-raised her head, a sob of joy quivering over her lips, but again Mrs. Vale spoke:

“The circumstantial evidence was not strong enough to convict, so the jury acquitted me—but—public opinion adjudged me guilty. The judge and jury that acquitted me were hissed in the crowded court-room. I, too, was hissed as I left it, and ever since that day a malicious clamor has hounded my friendless footsteps through the world.”

She paused, and the low winds sighing through the blossoming limes seemed to echo the despair of her voice.

The dark, silken head lay still upon her knee. Italy was past moving or speaking for the moment, like one tranced in a terrible dream.

The low, sad voice went on:

“I should not have said that I was utterly friendless. My lawyer believed in me, was kind to me. After the trial I stayed for years in Boston, trying to live down the odium of my trial, but all in vain; then this kind friend advised me to come abroad.”

“Mama, then you are an American?” cried the daughter, in surprise.

“Yes, darling, I was born on New England soil, and your father was murdered at our seaside home at Winthrop, near Boston. It is there that his heir lives now.”

“His heir, mama?”

“Yes, Italy; your father was very rich, but his[Pg 9] wealth had come to him through English ancestry, and was strictly entailed on the male issue of the family. You were a girl, so the money went to a very distant cousin, a young man. To me, the hapless widow, and to you, the orphaned daughter, remained only my own small private fortune. With no relatives to turn to, deserted by my former friends, abhorred by the world, I soon became the restless wanderer I am now, but pursued ever by some malignant, unknown foe, who constantly blazons my sad story to the carping world.”

“My dearest one!” cried the girl caressingly, and her tender voice was full of love and sympathy.

The pale, statuesque face of Mrs. Vale quivered with emotion, and she strained the girl to her breast, sobbing convulsively:

“My child, you can never know what I have suffered! Oh, it has been a living death, this life of mine! I loved my husband so dearly that his loss was enough to break my heart; and to think of being accused of his death, to think of living under a ban, acquitted by the law, and judged guilty by popular verdict. Oh, it is enough to drive one mad!” and her slight form shook with heavy sobs as she clung to the beloved child, whose love was all that had saved her from utter misery.

“Mama, who did it? Who killed my father?” cried the girl.

“God alone knows, Italy. There was never any clue to any one, save some weak evidence that threw suspicion on me. Darling, I have kept all the papers[Pg 10] in the case and everything relating to it—kept them for you when you should grow to womanhood. You shall read them to-morrow, you shall know the whole tragic story, so that you may judge the mother you love.”

“My dearest one!” again cried the girl, and they wept together in each other’s arms.

That was long months ago, and now the girl who had knelt weeping in the old Italian garden walked alone on the beach at Winthrop, her dark, eager eyes fixed on a splendid old stone mansion fronting the sea—The Lodge, where her father had been murdered and where his heir now lived.

She went toward the grand villa, her eyes bright and thoughtful, her mind going back to that golden day in Italy when she had heard her mother sob despairingly:

“How could they say I killed him? I loved him so, I loved him so, and all my life is blighted by his loss!”

Her lips were trembling with the sadness of that memory as she went up the broad stone steps to the grand portico dotted with inviting easy chairs, while the broad double doors in front stood hospitably open, giving a view of a magnificent hall paved with cool blue and white tiles, and adorned with gleaming white statues between immense potted plants of tropical beauty. The warm breeze of August, tempered by the[Pg 11] cool sea-air, stirred the lance-leaved palms and bright-hued caladiums.

“This would have been my home had my father lived,” she murmured, and then she saw a tall man-servant approach her from the interior of the hall. She roused herself from a fanciful retrospection, and asked for Francis Murray, the master of the house.

“He is in his study. I will be pleased to take your card to him, miss.”

“I have no card. Simply tell him a stranger on important business,” Italy answered, with a strange, defiant uplifting of her slender ebon brows, and she sat down in one of the portico chairs to wait.

In another moment two beautiful young girls and a very stylish young man, all in natty yachting-suits, came sauntering up the broad steps. When they saw Italy sitting there in her simple gray traveling-dress, quiet and yet elegant, they stared in surprise, then nodded courteously, and also took seats at a distance, regarding her with veiled curiosity and admiration, all unconscious that this lovely, foreign-looking girl had brought into the quiet Lodge an element of intense tragedy.

“Ah, Alexie, that was a glorious sail,” cried the young man gaily.

“Alys did not think so,” and the young girl nodded at the other one, whose rosy lips were puckered in an angry pout.

“It was hateful, and I wish you would not tease[Pg 12] me, Ralph Allen!” exclaimed the pretty blonde petulantly, just as the servant came back and said:

“Mr. Murray will see you, miss.”

Italy followed him through the wide hall, and the other three gazed after the graceful form in subdued wonder.

“Whew! Alys, how do you like that?” laughed Ralph Allen.

“She is burning with jealousy of the beautiful unknown,” twittered the girl called Alexie, and the hum of their merry badinage followed Italy as she went with an almost tragic face toward the man she wished to see—her distant kinsman.

She found him in a beautiful library, with most exquisite appointments, the large open windows fronting the sea, whose salty breath blew deliciously into the room and mixed with the fine aroma of a cigar that Francis Murray flung away as he rose to meet his stranger guest, the girl with the tropic face and soul, who was bringing at this moment new, strange elements of emotion into his calm, prosperous existence.

[Pg 13]

CHAPTER II.

IN NEW SURROUNDINGS.

They stood face to face, the pair, and just for a moment Italy’s eyes sank to the cool, blue-tiled floor, with its litter of white fur rugs. Then she looked up and met Francis Murray’s gaze. Suddenly her breath came in a quick gasp, she trembled strangely, and her lips, that had parted to speak, closed again without a sound. She was stirred in a new and subtile fashion she could not comprehend. It was the magnetic influence of manly beauty and power combined upon a young girl’s heart.

Francis Murray was a large man, with a most attractive personality. He was fair without being strictly blond, his splendid eyes were blue-gray, with a sweet, serious look, his brow was white and square, his nose straight, his face oval with a firm chin, and full, sweet lips shaded by a drooping mustache of silky golden-brown. His hair a few shades darker, clustered in short, wavy masses to a grandly shaped head. He was past the early flush of youth, and looked thirty years old, perhaps a trifle more.

On his side Francis Murray was gazing on a type of beauty entirely distinct from his own, and quite as captivating, but thirty years, and perhaps a store of experience, had made him unimpressionable. His fine[Pg 14] eyes expressed only surprise and courteous inquiry as he spoke:

“My name is Francis Murray, Miss——”

“Vale—Italy Vale,” answered the girl, and she saw him start ever so slightly as he motioned to a chair.

“Will you be seated, Miss Vale?”

Italy was trembling strangely; she was glad to accept the courtesy. Then she lifted up her eyes to him and continued in her sweet, liquid voice with its distinctly foreign accent:

“Perhaps my name is familiar to you, Mr. Murray. My father was your kinsman—Ronald Vale.”

“Ah-h!” cried Francis Murray.

He half-started from the chair into which he had gracefully flung himself; his handsome face grew slightly pale. Before he could speak, the low voice went on musically:

“You have a mother, sir, have you not?”

“Yes,” he replied coldly.

“And I, sir, am doubly orphaned. I—I—have—lost—my—dear—mother——” her voice shook painfully, and her lashes fell, perhaps to crush back rising tears.

He interrupted, in surprise:

“Mrs. Vale is dead! When?”

But the girl was sobbing hysterically in her handkerchief. Some broken words escaped her lips—words of entreaty that he would not question her yet, while her sorrow was so fresh, so new.

[Pg 15]

He was silent, respecting her grief, but his face was a study, it was so thoughtful, so perturbed.

Italy looked up at him again presently, the bright tears beading her black curly lashes, her lips tremulous.

“When I lost my mother I had—no kinspeople in the world but you,” she sobbed. “Mama had once—told me about you—and—your mother, so I thought I ought to come—home to you two. I call it home, you see, although I was born in Italy and bear that name. But I am an American, after all, you know, and my heart turned to my father’s old home. Was I wrong to come, or—may I stay?”

He sat speechless, staring at her in blank, appalled silence. In some fashion, although it was a far-distant relationship, this girl was akin to him, but—he was one of those who believed in her mother’s guilt. It made his heart freeze to her child.

“May I stay?” she repeated, in a pathetic voice, seconded by great, appealing dark eyes.

“Miss Vale, I must consult my mother first,” he answered bruskly, in spite of himself, and hurriedly left the room.

Italy waited, her slender hands locked together in her lap, her dark eyes gazing through the windows at the restless sea, her face pale, her lips compressed in a scarlet line. Her kinsman’s cold manner had chilled her like ice. She waited a long time, it seemed to her, then the door opened softly and a woman came in—a woman of fifty, with the traces of former[Pg 16] beauty still remaining, tall, slight, and distingué as a duchess. She held out an aristocratic hand sparkling with gems.

“So you are Ronald Vale’s daughter? Welcome to The Lodge,” she said courteously, but with a frosty tone that did not escape Italy’s sensitive hearing.

But she bowed with as thoroughbred an air as madam’s own, and presented the tips of her small, cold fingers.

“My son has told me,” continued the sweet, chilly voice, “that your mother is dead, leaving you alone and friendless in the world. You were right to come to us. Your father was my cousin, although a very distant one. I was a Vale before my marriage. You resemble your father very much.”

With those few words Italy Vale was received as a member of the Murray family. There was no attempt at cordiality, no exuberant welcome. She understood clearly that, inasmuch as she had thrust herself upon the Murrays, they accepted the unwelcome charge through a sense of duty, mixed with highbred courtesy.

Soon she stood alone in the luxurious guest-chamber Mrs. Murray had assigned her after promising to have her small amount of luggage brought from the station at once.

Mrs. Murray herself showed Italy her room, and, lingering a moment, said:

“We have some Boston friends staying in the house—the Misses Audenreid, Alys and Alexie, twin sisters,[Pg 17] and their aunt, a young widow—also two young men, Ralph Allen and Emmett Harlow. They are all very pleasant people, and I hope you will get on with them. I will go now and send my maid to assist you.”

The door closed, and Italy was alone with her own thoughts.

“It was easy—so far!” she mused. “God grant me success in my mission!” then the dark eyes suddenly dimmed. “But, oh, how I miss you, my dearest one,” she sighed.

Down-stairs there was a little flutter of excitement among the guests, who had learned from Mrs. Murray of the advent of the orphan girl, who would from henceforth be a member of the household.

Alexie Audenreid and Ralph Allen laughed, but Alys frowned at the news. It was an open secret to all that Alys was setting her cap at the master of the house, and that she was jealous of every possible rival.

She was bent on captivating the wary heart of the grave, handsome host, and in this ambition she was encouraged by her dashing aunt, Mrs. Dunn, who, by the way, was not a widow, as Mrs. Murray had said, but a divorcee. She always spoke of herself as a widow, however, and her friends very kindly supported the little fiction. Truth to tell, Mrs. Murray rather seconded the designs of Alys.

She disliked to see Francis growing into a bachelor past thirty, with no particular interest in the fair sex, indeed with a soupçon of cynical indifference[Pg 18] toward it. She wished him to marry, and Alys Audenreid, only twenty years old, pretty, and with a neat fortune, seemed a very suitable match.

Alexie was already engaged to Ralph Allen, and the twin sisters had always planned to be married on the same night.

The wedding-day was set for January, so Alys would have to hasten the wooing of the laggard lover.

Into this coterie of friends, with their selfish aims and desires, Italy Vale had now entered, a jarring, unwelcome element. What would be the outcome of it all?

A week had passed—a month it seemed to the lonely girl who felt herself an alien to those by whom she was surrounded.

To Francis Murray, the man who possessed such a peculiar interest for Italy, she was almost as much a stranger as on the first day she came.

“He avoids me, courteously, yet palpably,” she said to herself bitterly. “But no wonder. It is his guilty conscience. The daughter’s presence is a reminder of the parents whom he wronged. Oh, Heaven, can it be true that this noble-looking man is the criminal I suspect, whom I have vowed to hunt down? But who else was there to profit by my father’s death?” and she watched Francis Murray with a painful intensity, till she grew to know almost every expression of the thoughtful, handsome face that was so grave[Pg 19] and cold whenever it turned to her, the girl who had thrust herself upon his care.

Almost the first day of her coming, Mrs. Murray had said to her almost apologetically:

“My son is very quiet and studious. You must not expect him to be very cordial. It is not his way. He likes best to be left alone in his library among his books.”

“I shall not intrude upon him, madam,” the girl answered almost haughtily, and her footsteps never strayed near the beautiful room where she had first met the gaze of the startled, blue-gray eyes of Francis Murray.

She quite understood the delicate hint that she was to keep out of his way. But she did not believe that it was not his way to be cordial. She noticed him with the others. She saw that he could unbend from his grave dignity to jest and laugh with them.

Italy soon found out that Alys Audenreid adored her host. She owned to herself that it was not strange. There was a fascination about this man that made itself felt even without effort of his own.

“I, too, could admire him, but for my terrible suspicions,” she owned to herself, with unwilling candor.

The days went by, and it seemed as if, after all, she might win a few friends in the household. Ralph Allen and Alexie, his pretty fiancée, were kind to her, and soon she found that Emmett Harlow was often at her side, his clear blue eyes expressing a very decided[Pg 20] admiration for the handsome stranger. He had a kind heart, and he tried to make up to her for the coldness of the others.

“You must not mind Alys,” he said. “She is jealous of every pretty face that comes under the eyes of Francis Murray, and as for her aunt, she is spiteful because there is a man she likes very much, and she is afraid he will fall in love with you when he comes here next week.”