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The books in this line comprise an unrivaled collection of copyrighted novels by authors who have won fame wherever the English language is spoken. Foremost among these is Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, whose works are contained in this line exclusively. Every book in the New Eagle Series is of generous length, of attractive appearance, and of undoubted merit. No better literature can be had at any price. Beware of imitations of the S. & S. novels, which are sold cheap because their publishers were put to no expense in the matter of purchasing manuscripts and making plates.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

TO THE PUBLIC:—These books are sold by news dealers everywhere. If your dealer does not keep them, and will not get them for you, send direct to the publishers, in which case four cents must be added to the price per copy to cover postage.

[Pg 1]

WHEN LOVE DAWNS

OR,

DARK MAGDALEN

BY

ADELAIDE STIRLING

AUTHOR OF

“Nerine’s Second Choice,” “The Purple Mask,” “Lover or Husband?” etc.

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

[Pg 2]

Copyright, 1900 By STREET & SMITH

When Love Dawns

[Pg 3]

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING!

Our experience with the American reading public has taught us that it expects better reading than readers of any other nationality. Why? Because Americans, as a rule, are better educated and more intelligent. We make it a point to cater to all classes of readers with our paper-covered novels. If a man likes adventure or detective stories, he can find more and better ones in the S. & S. novel list than he can among the cloth books. If a woman wants love, society, or mystery stories, the S. & S. catalogue again contains just what she wants at the lowest possible price. If a boy wants up-to-date baseball, athletic, or treasure-hunt stories, he cannot get anything that will please him so much as the books in the MEDAL and NEW MEDAL LIBRARIES, no matter how much he has to spend for his reading matter.

Here are a few suggestions:

BOOKS FOR MEN.

The Nick Carter stories in the New Magnet Library.

The Howard W. Erwin stories in the Far West Library.

The William Wallace Cook stories in the New Fiction Library.

The Dumas stories in the Select Library.

BOOKS FOR WOMEN.

The Mrs. Georgie Sheldon stories in the New Eagle Series.

The Charles Garvice stories in the New Eagle Series.

The Bertha Clay stories in the Bertha Clay Library.

The Southworth stories in the Southworth Library.

The Mrs. Mary J. Holmes stories in the Eagle and Select Libraries.

BOOKS FOR BOYS.

The Burt L. Standish stories in the New Medal Library.

The Horatio Alger stories in the Medal and New Medal Libraries.

The Oliver Optic stories in the Medal and New Medal Libraries.

The Edward C. Taylor stories in the New Medal Library.

Send for our complete catalogue and look these stories up. It will pay you.

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK

[Pg 4]

Why Take a Chance?

Most everybody thinks that the public library is a mighty fine institution—teaches people to read, and all that. Well, so it does, but does any one ever think of the great risk that a person, who takes a book out of a public library, runs of catching some contagious disease?

Every time a bacteriological examination is made of the public-library book, germs of every known disease are found among its pages. Probably, from your own experience, you know that lots of people never think of taking a book from the public library, until some one in their family is sick and wants something to read.

As records prove that ninety per cent of the demand for books at the public libraries is for works of fiction, it strikes us that the reading public would do better to patronize the S. & S. novel list which contains hundreds of books to be found in the public libraries, and many hundreds of others just as good and interesting.

The price of the S. & S. novels is a low one indeed to pay for protection from disease-laden literature. Why run the risk, then, when you can get a fresh, clean book for little money and thus insure your health?

STREET & SMITH, Publishers NEW YORK

[Pg 5]

CHAPTER I. PROFITS OF A PAST.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The girl had her back turned on the extravagant, luxurious room and its one other occupant. Her voice was full of anger and she stared out of the window as though she had not patience to meet the other woman’s eyes.

“What good would it have done?” Mrs. Arden lay stretched full length on the sofa, her untidy dressing-gown disposed gracefully about her.

“I could have done something?”

“What? Gone without meat on Fridays and had bread without butter? You may as well turn round, Magdalen! I know you’re raging.”

“I’m not.” She wheeled slowly. “It wasn’t my money, it was yours. But if I’d known I wouldn’t have helped you waste it, I’d have worked, I wouldn’t have lived on you. Oh, Doll!” hotly, “can’t you see it’s been madness? What have you ever got for all you’ve thrown away?”

“We’ve had a good time,” calmly. “What’s the use of talking about it? My money’s s-p-e-n-t, spent—and that’s the end of it. Now we’ve got to live on our wits.”

Magdalen Clyde looked at her stepsister curiously, as though she saw her for the first time—her fragile, waxen [Pg 6]prettiness; her careless mouth! her eyes, half tired and half mocking. For all the soft lines of her face there was something reckless in it this morning.

“Don’t stare at me,” cried Dolly petulantly. “You’ve seen me before and I’m not looking my best on this delightful occasion. And what you’re thinking is a waste of time! I’m not going to look for a place as housekeeper while you go out as a nursery governess. I’m thirty years old and the world owes me a living. It wasn’t my fault that I came into it.”

“Why did you take me on your shoulders? I could have worked for myself.”

A curious expression flitted across Dolly’s face. But whatever caused it she kept to herself. Perhaps for only one second had she meant to tell why she had taken Magdalen.

“Don’t talk rubbish!” she said shortly. “Mother died—I had the money. You went to school and I got married; not for long, thank the powers! And anyhow, here we are without one penny. Your assets, I believe,” and she laughed, “are two black frocks, three indifferent hats and a red head. Mine are: Item—one husband, kindly removed by desertion; item—one small boy of three and ad infinitum—do you like my delicate wit?—debts, debts and duns. My looks I will leave out of the question; perhaps they are a little frayed around the edges. But my reputation, thanks to your eternal vigilance, is good! You’ve been quite worth your keep, my beloved!”

“What does your reputation matter?” hastily; with sense enough not to say what was on her tongue. Dolly Arden’s reputation! A hundred lucky slides over cracking ice, a habit of knowing no women who could talk about her escapades or her parties, a childlike callousness that thought the world both deep and blind. If these things build up a good reputation, Dolly Arden [Pg 7]had one. The girl dismissed the long list of men who had adorned her stepsister with various jewelry and vanished—though their presents stayed—and asked her question over again scornfully:

“What does your reputation matter?”

“Everything,” returned Mrs. Arden calmly. “It’s my stock in trade. I’m going to become a British matron; well-dressed, too. I’m going to drive through the rest of my life in a carriage and have bishops’ wives to tea.”

“You don’t mean”—there was never much color in Magdalen’s face, but now it was as white as paper—“he isn’t—you’re not going to dare to get married again?”

“On the contrary, I’m going to become a widow! You don’t look pretty with your mouth open like a codfish, my child, and your horror’s wasted. He,” significantly, “is not going to marry me. It’s my previous history that will enable me to consort with bishops’ wives when convenient, not my future.”

“Do you mean the kind who abide in asylums?” trenchantly. “For goodness’ sake, Doll, speak out! What do you mean? I know something’s happened. Last night you walked the floor, for I heard you, and this morning you’re a different creature.”

“Last night I saw no resource for us but to turn costermongers on half a crown capital! This morning”—a queer look, half excitement, half determination, came on her face; she stood up with her torn dressing-gown let hang as it liked—“this morning, Magdalen, Lord Barnysdale’s dead!”

“Oh, sit down,” wrathfully. “You look like Crazy Ann. I’m too tired for jokes. I never heard of Lord Barnysdale when he was alive; what does his being dead matter to us?”

Mrs. Arden laughed; then pirouetted with a childish, careless grace.

[Pg 8]

“Everything!” she cried. “Barnysdale’s dead, I’m a widow—a widow!” and she waltzed round the room.

“Dolly, for Heaven’s sake!” said Magdalen furiously, yet her pale face, with its level black brows and somber eyes, might have been a picture in black and white for all the life there was in it as she caught the small dancing figure gently enough. “Are you demented or do you think I am?”

“Neither,” panting. “I mean Barnysdale’s dead and I’m rich!”

“You don’t mean he was—Arden?” blankly.

For all she knew about her stepsister’s marriage was that it had been unhappy, that the man had deserted her and that Dolly, in a moment of unwonted frankness, had once said his name was not Arden; though what it was she had not disclosed. For all her gaiety and her recklessness there was never a more secretive woman on earth—about her own affairs—than Dolly.

“Yes, I do.” Dolly’s lips grew very pale, her eyes defiant. “Let go of me and sit down while I tell you. But for Heaven’s sake poke the fire first! I’m frozen,” with a shiver, as if all her dancing had not quickened her blood.

“This is the last of the coal.” Magdalen’s hand dropped from her stepsister’s arm, but she did not move to the ugly, dull fire.

“The last? You idiot, I’m a countess! I’ll never worry about coal again as long as I live.”

“Dolly,” said Magdalen slowly, “I don’t believe you!”

For one second there was on Dolly Arden’s face a look that might have been terror. The next her small, fair head went back defiantly; if she found her voice by an effort it was imperceptible.

“You’ll have to,” she returned. “Look here,” pointing to the morning paper she had calmly taken from [Pg 9]the door of the next flat, “Barnysdale died last night; there’s the notice. And here’s the rest!” she pulled an envelope from her pocket and threw it to Magdalen.

As the girl took out the three papers that were in it Mrs. Arden looked, not at her, but at her own stone-cold hands. Her small face was bloodless; every fine line time—or other things—had marked on it showed out in the gray November light. If she were thirty and owned to it she looked forty, with that dreadful tenseness on her face as if she were trying an experiment she dared not watch.

But Magdalen had no eyes for her.

There, in black and white, staring her in the face, was the marriage certificate of Dorothy Deane and John Ogilvie, Earl of Barnysdale, Viscount Stratharden; the baptismal register of Ronald, their only son.

“Doll!” she exclaimed, “why did you never tell me? And why did you worry like you’ve been doing? Why didn’t you go to him while he was alive? He would have had to do something for you.”

“I couldn’t,” hoarsely. “Read the last paper and you’ll see why!” but her mouth had grown suddenly lax as if with relief, and as she looked up her beautiful, shallow eyes were for the first time steady.

“Was he out of his mind?” said Magdalen, gathering the sense of that third paper incredulously.

“No,” doubtfully, hesitating, “only tired, I—I think. He——” She gave herself an angry little shake. Why was she telling her story as though it were that of some one else?

“Here,” she cried roughly, “give me the papers. I’ll tell you the whole thing! You know when mother died I went on the stage. Well, I wasn’t a success—that’s the long and short of it! And I got ill. I went down [Pg 10]to Hastings to a good hotel, with the last money I had. I thought I would eat and drink that, and then, if nothing turned up, the sea would be convenient. You were at that convent; you were only a girl I hardly knew. Anyhow”—as if she were defending herself—“you’ve never known, as I have, what it was to be afraid of life because you were poor.”

“Poor! But you’d mother’s money.”

“Not then,” impatiently. “Can’t you remember? When she died there was just a lump sum and some stock in a mine that hadn’t paid for eight years; but of that lump sum I paid the money down for the rest of your education; you were only fifteen then and I didn’t want you with me, and the rest I kept for myself. It was only a hundred pounds and it went like that”—snapping her fingers—“and I went to Hastings. I didn’t care a straw for you in those days.”

The girl nodded. She remembered that well enough.

“Well, I met him there!” with a hard breath through pinched nostrils. “We were married; not a soul knew but the registrar. He had his yacht there and we went away in her, and I was never called anything but Mrs. Arden! I didn’t care, because I had good clothes and enough to eat, but he told me plainly enough he didn’t mean to announce his marriage. He said he was sick of the people he lived among and—well, I suppose I wasn’t much like them,” bitterly, yet somehow with the bitterness of the actress she once had been. “We left the yacht and lived in London. My God! how dull it was! He was out all day long. I never knew a creature except my own maid.”

She moistened her lips, stiff and dry; it was harder to tell all this than she had thought. “Then Ronald was born and he—he was furious! I can see him now raging up and down. He wouldn’t have the child christened—wouldn’t [Pg 11]look at him. But when I got better”—every word seemed dragged out of her and, seeing the humiliation of her story, Magdalen could not wonder—“I had it done; and the next week he left me. That charming document,” pointing to the largest of the three papers on her lap, “was what he left behind him. You see that it’s to the point, genuine; no one,” with a crooked smile, “would ever think of making up or inventing a letter like that!”

Magdalen read it once more, this time aloud. It was scrupulously signed and dated, but it began with neither formality nor affection:

“When this is handed to you I shall be gone. To my regret I find the atmosphere of middle-class domesticity even less bearable than my former surroundings. I have no fault to find with either your conduct or your character, which are flawless to the utmost boredom—at least they have produced that in me. I leave in your hands, chiefly because I cannot avoid it, irrefragable proofs of your marriage to me; and I rely on your affection and your honor not to use them. “My heir I leave to your care, and I also leave you a sufficient amount of money for present expenses. When that is done, you understand that there will be no more, nor do I mean to acknowledge you in any way. You may say that you can force me to do so, which is perfectly true; but you doubtless know me well enough by this time to realize what the consequences of that course of action would be. “If, on the contrary, you obey my instructions—and I think I do not build too greatly on your wifely and motherly affection—I make you the following offer: At my death you are free to claim your rights for yourself

and your son. As I am nearly thirty years your senior, you may not have long to wait. I will leave a letter, written at the same time as this, with my lawyers, acknowledging the legality of your marriage and the legitimacy of my son’s birth. If I seemed annoyed at the latter [Pg 12]event it was merely momentary. I married you for a purpose which I find you cannot fulfil. My son’s existence is, during my lifetime, of no importance; after my death, very much the reverse; but during my life I have no desire to be hampered with either you or him. I leave you—since you are a woman, and must have reasons—because you can neither please, interest nor amuse me. Kindly let me know your decision on this matter by a telegram to the enclosed address. Any letter will only be returned to you. “I have, madam, the honor to remain, “Your husband, “Barnysdale. “P. S.—I should advise you to dismiss your maid, who deserves a less confined sphere for her delightfully outspoken tongue. As for your livelihood I have no fears, remembering how many times you have assured me that

it would gratify you to be allowed to return to your profession.”

“Of all the wicked letters!” began Magdalen Clyde slowly, and sat looking at the unspeakable document. “What did you do? I would have”—her beautiful mouth straightened, her eyes grew veiled and evil—“I would have made him acknowledge me that very day or I’d have killed him!”

“You didn’t know him,” sharply. “I did. And nothing, not Ronald’s future nor starvation, would have made me live with him a single day when I’d once got rid of him! I sent the telegram.”

“You agreed! To be thrown over like that?”

“I did. I wired that in accordance with his wishes I would make no claim on him during his lifetime. I hated him. I was thankful, thankful to have him out of my sight.”

“And you never heard from him?”

“I never heard.” All her old lightness had come back to her and a certain something her stepsister had never [Pg 13]seen in her. “He’s dead!” she cried with dreadful, venomous joy. “He’s cold, and they’ll put him in the ground. And I’m alive and warm and a countess!”

“Hush! Stop! It’s unlucky,” Magdalen said sharply. “You’re not a countess yet.”

“It’s all the same. We’re made, Magdalen! I need never worry again about what my clothes cost. And now you can lend me your black hat and I’ll hasten to my defunct John’s lawyers. John was his name. Fancy an earl named John!”

“You’d better not go while you look like you do, wild with joy,” bluntly.

But Dolly only kissed her hand as she went out.

[Pg 14]

CHAPTER II. WHEN THE PRESENT’S QUESTIONABLE.

Dolly—headlong, hard, pretty Dolly—a countess!

“I don’t believe it,” said Magdalen Clyde to herself, even after seeing Dolly depart in a black gown—got, Heaven knows where—and the borrowed black hat.

Exactly what she had done to make herself look so pathetic and yet so dignified her stepsister did not know. She looked precisely as a deserted wife should look; tremulously brave, meek, yet determined. But even so, and in the face of those certificates and that letter there was cold, lurking disbelief in the heart of the girl she left behind.

“I don’t know what ails me,” she thought angrily. “Dolly tells lies, of course, but not to me. And this couldn’t be a lie, or she wouldn’t dare. But how on earth she can ever be a countess? Dolly, who hates everything conventional and never was civil to a woman in her life. Bah!” with sudden self-contempt, “it isn’t that and I know it. It’s that I’m frightened. I’d rather go and sing in a music-hall than have to live with Dolly if they find her story’s true.”