CHAPTER I. “IF ONLY——”

When the beautiful Miss Maybelle Maury, of Mount Vernon, New York, was returning in October, 1894, from her tour of Europe with her chaperon, Mrs. Vere de Vere, a New York society leader, she was introduced by the latter to our hero, handsome young St. George Beresford, the only son of a New York millionaire.

Life on shipboard offers many temptations to flirtation, and the fascinating youth did not show himself indifferent to the challenge that Maybelle’s dark, languishing eyes immediately flashed into his face. He attached himself to her party, and made lazy, languid love to the beauty all the way over.

The chaperon was delighted, and plumed herself not a little on the probable grand match she had brought about for her favorite Maybelle. She knew that the girl’s[6] mother, her own distant relative, would be overjoyed at this lucky turn of Fortune’s wheel. Maybelle was nineteen, and it was time she was making her matrimonial market, because she had two younger sisters at school who must come out in a year or two more, and it would be so expensive having three girls in society at once, for the father, though a prosperous New York merchant, could not be rated among the millionaires.

Our space, however, will not permit us to follow the progress of Maybelle’s flirtation through those bright October days upon the sea.

But when the twain parted in New York, St. George Beresford was invited to visit the beauty at her home in Mount Vernon, close to the great metropolis, and carelessly promised to go “some day.”

It was a shame that the handsome rogue forgot all about it afterward, so that they did not meet again until the winter, when Maybelle was spending a month in the height of the season with her New York friend, Mrs. Vere de Vere.

Her dark eyes flashed with pleasure as they clasped hands again after those months of separation, and she cried reproachfully:

“You forgot your promise!”

The laughing brown eyes grew soft with repentance as he returned, coaxingly:

“Indeed, I meant to come to Mount Vernon, but—I went South the first of November with my folks, and didn’t return until—well, recently. So now—will you forgive me?”

Would she not forgive the deceitful wretch anything, charming Maybelle, who secretly adored him? She knew[7] that he had only remained South five weeks, but she flashed him a melting glance, and murmured, sweetly:

“I’ll forgive you, sir, on only one condition—that you come in the early spring.”

“Only too glad to promise—so good of you to permit me,” cooed the jeunesse dorée; and so the flirtation was resumed, although not very spiritedly on his part. He was five-and-twenty, and several years in the social swim had made him shy of pretty anglers for rich catches.

They met at balls, operas, and receptions—they drove together a few times, he made several short calls, and sent her flowers and books, but his frank nonchalance through it all was not encouraging. It was froth on a light wave, and even the keen attention of Mrs. Vere de Vere could detect no latent earnestness.

“He does not seem to mean anything in particular,” she confided candidly to the girl on the last day of her stay; and Maybelle laughed and answered that she did not care—she had only been flirting with him.

But that night her pillow was wet with tears because of his careless farewell when he heard she was going.

But she could not banish his image from her warm heart. Her love, as well as her pride, was enlisted, and a little spark of hope kept alive in her heart the longing that he would keep his promise to come in the spring.

But it is more than probable that he would have audaciously forgotten again, only her brother Otho sought his acquaintance and attached himself to him, with the result that he “bagged the game”—that is, he brought St. George Beresford to Mount Vernon in May, when the handsome home on Prospect Avenue, Chester Hill, was looking its best among its trees and flowers.

Oh, how shyly happy Maybelle was at his coming! The[8] love in her heart made her dusky beauty more dazzling than ever before. Joy lent a deeper, fuller cadence to her musical voice. Hope shone again like a brilliant star in her languishing dark eyes, with their heavy, black-fringed lashes.

St. George Beresford suddenly found her winning on him in a subtle fashion and told himself that really she was growing more charming with each day and hour. This tenderness and admiration might have ripened into passion for Maybelle, if only——

Ah! those words, if only—so short, so simple, yet so fraught with meaning!

Maybelle might have won Beresford’s heart and become his bride, if only he had not seen, as he lounged at the gate with Otho Maury, one May morning, that vision of a blue-eyed, golden-haired, cherry-lipped, dimpled-faced girl in dark blue flashing past the gate on a shining wheel, leaving in his heart a memory of the sweetest, sauciest, most adorable young face in the world.

“Who is she?” he asked, hoarsely, of Otho; who replied, carelessly:

“Miss Florence Fane, the carpenter’s daughter, nicknamed Fly-away Floy, by reason of her hoidenish ways and never did a girl deserve the title more.”

It was that lovely face, dear reader, that brought the elements of tragedy into my story.

CHAPTER II. “HEIRESS OF FATE.”

Otho Maury’s tone was light and contemptuous, but at heart he was furious. He had a penchant for Florence Fane himself, and dreaded a rival in this man whose[9] face had paled at the sight of her, and whose voice had trembled as he asked her name—ay, whose very heart shone in his splendid eyes as he leaned over the gate watching the flying wheel and its graceful rider like one in a dream—a dream of love, for his pulse beat fast, his heart leaped wildly, his very soul was stirred within him in strange, delirious ecstasy.

Maybelle came down the graveled walk to them, beautiful in a dainty white gown with purple lilacs at her slender waist.

But St. George Beresford did not turn to meet her gaze, and Otho said, sneeringly:

“Beresford has been struck dumb by the sight of a beauty on a bicycle.”

“A beauty?” frowningly.

“Yes. Little Fly-away Floy.”

“Nonsense, she is no beauty, only a mischievous little hoiden! Don’t let her turn your head, Mr. Beresford; she isn’t in our set at all. Her father is a mechanic, and her mother a seamstress.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed, carelessly, turning around and flashing her a bright, quizzical glance, in which he seemed to dismiss the thought of Florence Fane.

He was very proud, and did not wish her to know that he had been fascinated by one so far below him in social position.

But Maybelle had equivocated, and she hoped ardently that he would not find it out.

A flavor of romance and mystery hung around Florence Fane’s origin.

John Banks, the kind-hearted carpenter, had taken the sobbing child nine years ago from the side of her dead mother and carried her home to his childless wife, who,[10] because Floy seemed to have no kith or kin, had taken her into her heart and called her daughter, and both lavished a world of tenderness on the seven-year-old child. But save in nobility of nature and a tender heart, she was no more like the homely pair than a restless humming-bird is like a toiling honey-bee. She was rarely, exquisitely beautiful, lovable after an imperious fashion, but willful and untamable in disposition, the result of spoiling by a too fond and overindulgent mother, who at the last had deserted her by fleeing from life’s pains and penalties by the forbidden path of suicide.

Floy was heiress by her birth to a small estate and to a terrible taint of blood—the mania for suicide.

She was a descendant of the Nellest family, that for forty years had numbered in each decade a suicide among its members.

The scene of these tragedies was at an old farm-house on a lonely road two miles from Mount Vernon.

The house, a substantial and somewhat pretentious structure of rough dark stone, overgrown picturesquely in many places with creeping ivy, stood back from the road in a magnificent grove of old oak-trees, and twenty-five acres of rich farming land stretched away in the rear.

But so grewsome was the reputation of the place, that for nine years it had had no tenants, and its name had changed, by tacit consent of the neighborhood, from Nellest Farm to Suicide Place.

The Nellest family had owned and tilled this farm almost a hundred years, but in the middle of the century the head of the family had committed suicide by cutting his throat, and just ten years later, his only son was found hanging from a tree near the spot where his father died.

[11]

The widow of the son, with her only daughter, continued to reside at the farm, employing a competent man to manage it. But when another decade rolled around, the neighborhood was horrified to learn that the manager had shot himself in the head, adding the third to the list of deaths by suicidal mania.

Horrified and unnerved by all these tragedies, Widow Nellest fled from the place with her beautiful young daughter, leaving the property in the hands of a lawyer for rent or sale.

But neither buyer nor tenant could be found, and successive crops of weeds ripened and died on the untilled acres. The poorest beggar would have refused to live there rent-free.

At almost the end of the next decade the daughter of Widow Nellest returned to the place in widow’s weeds, and with a child seven years old. Her mother had died of a broken heart, she said, and she herself had been married and widowed.

In spite of the horror of the neighborhood, she took up her abode at Suicide Place, declaring herself poor and unable to make a home elsewhere. Here she lived alone with her child, as neither man-servant nor maid-servant would have gone inside the gates for love or money.

And here, after a few months’ solitude, Mrs. Fane, overcome by the terrible, mysterious spirit of the old place, succumbed to the mania of her family and poisoned herself.

John Banks, who had been employed by the woman to mend her gates, heard the frightened shrieks of little Floy one morning when he came to his work, and most reluctantly entered the house.

He found Mrs. Fane dead, with a bottle of poison[12] clutched in her stiffened hand. She had been dead for hours.

The carpenter took the orphan child to his own home, and into his big, generous heart. Then he reported the case, after which there was a coroner’s inquest and a verdict of suicide by poison.

Enough money was found in the house to bury her decently, and then the old place was left to its grim solitude again.

This was Florence Fane’s inheritance—the old farm that none would rent or buy, and the terrible taint of blood that made her an object of a romantic interest and pity to the many who knew what must be her probable fate.

But, strange to say, the child herself knew and laughed at these whisperings. She had no superstition in her make-up; and, although forbidden by her adopted parents to enter even the gates, she was in the habit of going secretly to the old house and rambling through it at will. She even declared that she would go and live there, if any one would bear her company; but no one accepted her defiant challenge to fate.

Meanwhile, the time was approaching when the grim, unappeasable Moloch of the place would demand, in all probability, its fifth victim. It was shunned like the plague, for all remembered that not only the family, but one of no kith or kin, had met self-sought death there. None but Floy ventured near the place—willful Floy, who laughed to scorn their predictions that she would be the next sacrifice. When they tried to reason with her, she would not listen to their warnings, darting away like a gay, elusive little humming-bird.

When St. George Beresford turned away from the[13] gate where he had watched Fly-away Floy out of sight, he knew that his heart had gone with her forever, and that he never had, and never could love Maybelle Maury as she wished to have him do—for he had long since fathomed the tender secret of her heart. The knowledge made him feel very pitiful toward the poor girl, and rendered him so abstracted that she guessed the change in him directly, and became furiously jealous of her unconscious rival, merry little Floy.

He tried to smile and chat as usual with Maybelle and Otho, but his thoughts wandered from them in spite of himself.

Oh, how strange it was—how strange! Only a careless glance from a pair of blue eyes, as the girl had smiled and nodded at Otho Maury, and all the world had changed for St. George Beresford. He wondered vaguely if his glance had made any impression on the girl’s heart.

CHAPTER III. A DASTARDLY PLOT.

The first moment that Maybelle was alone with Otho she clung to his arm, whispering, sorrowfully:

“Otho, I am wretched! Did you mean what you said this morning—that St. George admired that girl?”

“Yes, I meant it, every word, Maybelle, for it is true, curse the luck! and unless we carry things with a high hand, he is lost to you forever. In fact, I never saw a fellow so hard hit in all my life. He actually turned white to the lips with emotion, and his voice was hoarse and strange as he demanded her name; and, of course, you noticed how distrait and half-hearted he has been all day?”

[14]

“Yes, I saw it too plainly; but, oh, I can not give him up! Oh, surely, he would not stoop to her—so far beneath him socially! Besides, she isn’t so pretty, either—only with a babyish kind of beauty.”

“Not so pretty, Maybelle! Why, now you make a fatal mistake, underrating the girl’s charms. Half the fellows are raving over her style; and she could have a dozen proposals to-morrow, only she laughs them to scorn, the saucy little darling!”

“You are very enthusiastic, Otho!” she cried, suspiciously. “Perhaps you are in love with her yourself. I wish you would marry her to-morrow, and make it impossible for her to become my rival.”

He flushed, then laughed, answering, coolly:

“Thank you; but the plan isn’t feasible. I shouldn’t mind making love to the pretty little thing, for she’s sweet enough to turn any man’s head; but I intend, like yourself, to marry money when I sacrifice myself on Hymen’s altar.”

“Oh, brother, I am wretched, wretched! It isn’t alone for the money I want him. I have had other offers—rich ones, too; but I love him, love him, love him! I must win him or die! All in a minute I feel desperately wicked, and willing to do anything to win him for my own. I hate that girl already, and wish her dead! Why does she not go and kill herself like her mother?”

“Probably she will in the end; but she isn’t unhappy enough yet.”

“Then let us do something to drive her mad with despair at once!” cried Maybelle, feverishly, recklessly, her dark eyes flashing with a tigerish light not good to see.

Otho’s eyes flashed back the same spirit, for his heart[15] was burning with a cruel passion for bonny Floy. Stooping close to her ear, he whispered, hoarsely:

“Suppose I could drive her mad with love for me?”

“Try it, Otho, try it! Begin at once, please!” she responded, eagerly, hopefully.

“I will, for I fancy she admires me immensely already by her blushes when I speak to her, and I’ll follow up the good impression at once, storm the castle of her fancy, as it were, with ardent love-making, persuade her to elope with me, perhaps—oh, a mock marriage, of course! She is poor, and so she could not be taken au serieux.”

She listened without a protest to his diabolical scheme for wrecking the life of a pure and lovely girl. Oh, a jealous woman can be so hard and pitiless!

He continued:

“Of course you know she will be at the picnic we attend to-morrow?”

“No! Who dared invite the creature?” imperiously.

“Pshaw! Maybelle, that scorn was well acted before Beresford to-day; but in private we know that the girl really has some rights and a sort of footing in our set, so that we’re apt to meet her at less exclusive functions, such as this picnic will be. We can not keep from meeting her to-morrow, but we can forestall Beresford’s suit by plotting beforehand.”

“Tell me how, Otho, and be sure I will act my part.”

“I am sure you will; but I must first think it over, and in the morning I will confide my plans to you before we start for the picnic. And I’ll call at the carpenter’s cottage this evening. She is always on the porch with her guitar. I’ll get in her good graces so that I can monopolize her company to-morrow, and make him think he has no show with her at all. I’ll throw in some little fibs,[16] too, that he’s engaged to you, etc., so that she will shun him.”

“Yes, Otho, I see. That is a splendid idea, and easy to carry out. Oh, how I thank you for your clever help all through!” she cried, in a transport of joy and gratitude.

Otho accepted the praise complacently, but he knew he was working more for himself than for her.

It would be a most delightful part to play, the making love to Floy, and as for the rest, he was heart and soul in the scheme to win a millionaire for his brother-in-law. He was selfish and extravagant, and always in hot water with his father about money, so when Maybelle secured her prize he would make her pay a heavy price for his help.

CHAPTER IV. WHY DID SHE DO IT?

The next morning dawned gloriously, and in due time the carriages reached the picnic-grounds—just a mile past Suicide Place—a picturesque grove on the banks of a river. There was a pavilion and music for dancing, with every device for pleasure.

And Floy was there with the rest, charming in a white duck suit and big hat, self-possessed as a young princess, and not one whit abashed when Otho led her to his party, and said, graciously:

“You know my sister Maybelle, don’t you? She has been away a great deal lately, but she remembers little Fly-away Floy, and this is my friend, Mr. St. George Beresford.”

They all bowed graciously, and then the quartet sat[17] down together on the river-bank, for all this condescension was the plot that wicked Otho had unfolded to his sister that morning. Other couples joined them, while some danced in the pavilion, and still others swung in the hammocks under the shady trees.

They talked lightly and desultory on frothy subjects, as people at picnics usually do, and barely any one but Beresford remembered afterward that it was Otho Maury who started the subject of bravery and courage, and contrasted the difference in man and woman on these qualities of mind and strength. He exclaimed, finally:

“I adore courage and bravery in man or woman. Indeed, I would not marry a girl who was a coward—who ran shrieking from a mouse, or trembled at the thought of a burglar—but I could worship a fearless girl; such a one, for instance, as would dare to spend a night alone in a haunted house.”

The pretty girls who heard him all shrieked and shuddered with dismay—all except Floy, who shrugged her pretty shoulders, and said, vivaciously:

“Pshaw! that is not any great thing to do. I shouldn’t be afraid to stay in a haunted house all night.”

“Aren’t you afraid of ghosts, like most young girls?” asked Otho, incredulously.

“No, I’m not afraid, for I don’t believe in spirits.”

Maybelle laughed tauntingly.

“You are joking, Floy. You wouldn’t dare stay alone all night in Suicide House—now, would you?”

The girls all applauded Maybelle, sneering at Floy’s pretense of bravery, until the impulsive girl saw that they were overtly challenging her to a proof of her courage.

Flushing with anger, her blue eyes blazing with defiance, she cried, stormily:

[18]

“I am not a coward, Maybelle Maury, and I am not afraid of anything, ghost or human; and I will prove it to you all by staying alone at Suicide House to-night!”

“No, no; you must not!” cried a few voices, frightened at the thought of what she had been goaded to do.