SWEET VIOLET

BY MRS. ALEX. M^cVEIGH MILLER.

NO. 91
Sweet Violet by Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
Eagle Library
Street & Smith Publishers, New York

CONTENTS

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By WILLIAM WALLACE COOK

SWEET VIOLET;

OR,

The Fairest of the Fair.

BY

MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER,

Author of “Little Coquette Bonnie,” “The Senator’s Bride,” “Brunette and Blonde,” “Rosamond,” “The Senator’s Favorite,” “A Little Southern Beauty,” Etc., Etc.

NEW YORK:
STREET & SMITH, Publishers

Copyright, 1894,
BY STREET & SMITH

Sweet Violet

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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?

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NEW YORK

SWEET VIOLET.

CHAPTER I.
FAIREST OF THE FAIR.

Judge Camden’s two beautiful granddaughters were the pride of Fauquier County, and both were so charming that Paris himself must have hesitated long before awarding the golden apple to one alone as fairest of the fair.

Violet Mead and Amber Laurens were cousins and orphans, and looked upon as heiresses, for all of the old judge’s money would come to them at his death.

Violet was as lovely as her namesake flower, a blonde, with curling golden hair, dazzling dark-blue eyes, a pink and white skin, and an arch, spirited face, where Cupid hid in bewitching dimples. She was barely seventeen, and Amber but one year older—Amber, the brilliant brunette, with her graceful, willowy form, so tall and slender, golden-hazel eyes, olive skin, and dark-brown tresses in smooth, satiny braids at the back of her proud little head. They were as different in mind as in looks, for Violet was frank, free, spirited, with a sunshiny nature; while Amber was quite the reverse in everything—reserved and dignified, with an undercurrent of jealous pride and passion.

The two girls had never been as fond of each other as some cousins, but they were carelessly affectionate, and they might never have become so terribly alienated had they not had the bitter misfortune of losing their hearts to the same man.

How many alienations have come from this one cause; how many awful tragedies have followed in its train; how many hearts have been broken for a jealous love!

“Oh, Love! so sweet at first,

So bitter in the end;

Thou canst be fiercest foe,

As well as fairest friend!”

Cecil Grant had met Amber Laurens first while her cousin was away at boarding-school. He admired the brilliant brunette very much, and showed her enough attention to set the gossips of Greenville to predicting a match between the extremely handsome pair.

But, suddenly, when the summer was at its goldenest, the Virginia skies their bluest, the flowers their fairest, Violet Mead came home from school, her curly, golden head full of romantic fancies, herself the sweetest flower that bloomed at Golden Willows, the judge’s picturesque country home. She had never had a lover, but the romantic little maiden had begun to dream already of her fate.

When Cecil Grant met Violet, in her bonny, joyous girlhood, so happy and so lovely, it was like a revelation to his burning heart.

He realized in a moment that his admiration for Amber had been but an idle fancy for a coquettish beauty. Let others hesitate as they would over the cousin’s beauty, he thought Violet the truest, fairest, purest, and most charming girl in the whole world. His heart went out to her in a tide of resistless love, and he vowed to win her for his worshiped bride.

And if jealous, imperious Amber had not already given him her proud, passionate heart, he might have succeeded in his aim and realized his dreams of happiness and bliss.

But, day by day, Amber Laurens had marked his adoration for Violet, and at last she woke up to the fatal truth that she had lost her admirer. The sleeping tiger was aroused in her nature, and from that moment sweet Violet’s fate was sealed.

Ah, the pity of it that love should ever change to hate—that a jealous nature should stop at nothing till it had laid waste all the fair flowers of hope and joy springing to life in a young girl’s heart!

“This is where the roses grew,

Till the ground was all perfume,

And whenever zephyrs blew,

Carpeted with crimson bloom.

Now the chill and scentless air

Sweeps the flower-plots brown and bare!”

CHAPTER II.
LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM.

“Violet, I love you!”

The most romantic girl in the world could not have chosen a fairer scene for such beautiful words.

Violet had wandered down to the river, whose fringe of golden willows gave Judge Camden’s place its name. The pretty stream went singing by the foot of the sloping green lawn, and the girl loved its voice, like a mother’s lullaby.

She threw herself carelessly on the green, mossy bank murmuring, plaintively:

“I wonder if Amber spoke the truth this morning when she claimed Cecil for her lover. If she did, he is a heartless flirt, for all his looks and words and actions have seemed plainly to declare that he preferred me!”

The rosy mouth quivered with grief, and tears dimmed the dazzling, dark-blue eyes, for Amber had been very harsh that day when the two girls were quite alone. She had chided sweet Violet for going about clothed always in simple white.

“How silly you look, Violet, always in white, like a great baby! Have you no colored gowns?”

“Dozens of them, Amber, but I like my white gowns better these sweet, warm summer days.”

“My India silk is just as cool,” cried Amber, smoothing down the soft folds of green flowered silk with her dainty, jeweled hands.

Only last evening she had heard Cecil Grant declare that a pretty girl always looked angelic in white, and that was why the storm had burst on Violet’s head to-day.

But, all unconscious of her cousin’s bitter jealousy, the lovely girl shook back her golden locks and answered, smilingly:

“I like my white gowns better.”

Amber’s eyes grew dark with hate for her pretty cousin, and she flashed out, angrily:

“You wear them to please my handsome lover, Cecil Grant, because he said white gowns were pretty! You are trying to steal him from me!”

Gentle Violet stared at her angry cousin with wondering blue eyes and cried, breathlessly:

“I did not know you claimed Cecil for your lover, Amber, for I thought—thought——”

She paused, with a lovely blush.

“You thought he admired you, Miss Vanity? Well, you were bitterly mistaken, let me tell you! We were engaged before you came home from school, and Cecil has only been amusing himself with your credulity, while I looked on and applauded the fun! But the joke has gone far enough now, and the nonsense must come to an end. Ever since you came home you have tried to supplant me in Cecil’s heart, and I will no longer endure this rivalry! I——”

But she paused in her angry speech for want of a listener. Poor Violet had rushed from the room in tears.

Her grief was keen and bitter, for Cecil’s smiles and looks had wiled away her girlish heart, and it was cruel to hear that he loved another.

She had wandered down to the river-bank, her heart aching over the perfidy of handsome Cecil, who had made such audacious love to her with his tender, dark eyes while he was engaged to Amber.

“I—I—hate him!” she sobbed, miserably. “He is a wretched flirt, and Amber is no better to let him fool me so wickedly! I should like to punish them both for their treachery to me. Why didn’t they tell me frankly at first that they were engaged to be married and save me all this bitter pain?”

And all the while, behind the shade of the golden willows, Cecil Grant had been watching his little love in her soft, white gown and listening to her petulant complaints.

Suddenly he started forward, crying out, eagerly:

“Sweet Violet, you must not think such unkind thoughts of me, for I am not Amber’s lover, in spite of all she has told you. My darling, I love you!”

He gazed at Violet with adoring eyes, and she blushed to hear from her lover’s lips those sweetest words in the language, “I love you!”

“Sweet Violet, I love you!” cried Cecil Grant, ardently, and he sank down beside her, catching her little snowflake of a hand in his, pleading tenderly:

“I adore you, my little darling! Will you be my wife?”

It was an abrupt proposal, but Cecil knew that his tete-a-tetes with Violet were always interrupted by Amber, so when he saw his darling stealing down to the river all alone, he said to himself that he would follow and make hay while the sun shone.

He did not think that any one had seen him going toward the house, so he changed his course and went after Violet.

And he was just in time to catch her sorrowful, wondering exclamations over his supposed perfidy.

He comprehended like a flash the deceitful game Amber Laurens had been playing, and determined that sweet Violet should not doubt him a moment longer.

So, while the summer sunset was gilding the sky and the waves with molten gold, and the bird sang to his mate in the greenwood tree, the blue-eyed little beauty listened, beneath the shady willows, to the sweetest story man ever breathed to woman’s ears. The old but ever new story of Love.

And no nobler man than Cecil Grant ever whispered the story, no fairer, purer maiden than Violet ever listened to it with blushes of tender joy.

But the summer breeze, as it sighed through the willows, had a mournful sound, and the river gliding by the green, flowery banks murmured low of mystery and tragedy and sorrow.

“Cecil, I cannot marry you!” cried Violet, and she added, sadly:

“You belong to Amber. You were betrothed to her when I came home!”

He denied it with passionate vehemence:

“I admired Miss Laurens very much, but I only called on her to pass away the time. I never spoke to her of love or marriage!”

“Then you were a wretched flirt, Cecil Grant! for your attentions made me think you loved me, and all our friends predicted our speedy marriage!” cried an indignant voice, and there was Amber, magnificently beautiful in an elaborate white gown and gleaming, amber jewels.

She had watched him from her window going down to the river and followed him, eager for an interview on this romantic spot.

And this was her reward, to hear his avowal of love for her cousin and indifference for herself.

Oh, how cruelly her proud and loving heart was stung by the serpent of jealousy coiling there!

She could have slain the pair of lovers, so close together there beneath the shade of the golden willows.

And she could not repress the bitter, reproachful words with which she startled them from their sweet love-dream.

Cecil Grant sprang to his feet, crying, eagerly:

“I beg your pardon, Miss Laurens, if I have indeed acted so imprudently as you assert. My only excuse is that I did not think. You had many admirers besides myself, and how could I guess that your choice had fallen on me? I am very, very sorry. Will you forgive me?”

“Never! never!” she cried, bitterly, and with burning tears, as she rushed away, and left him alone with his fair young love, sweet Violet.

They gazed a moment in each other’s eyes, then Cecil drew her to his breast and held her strained in a long embrace.

“You are mine, Violet! mine forever!” he whispered, tenderly. “Never mind Amber. She will get over her disappointment and marry another.”

But he did not know the fiery, burning heart of Amber Laurens.

She had loved him with a passion that was intensified to madness by his loss.

And as she fled wildly back to the house, she registered a burning oath that Cecil Grant should never find happiness with Violet Mead.

“She must give him back to me, or I shall die of despair!” she cried, with burning tears, that almost blistered her beautiful cheeks.

She had never thought that Violet was her equal in beauty, never believed that they could be rivals in love.

The shock of her awakening was terribly intense. Reason seemed to totter on its throne.

She had loved sweet Violet in a careless, cousinly fashion before, but now all her love turned to jealous hate.

Pacing the floor of her sumptuous apartment, like a beautiful, angry tigress, she brooded over her bitter defeat, and wondered how she could punish her cousin for the triumph she had won.

Nothing she could do to Violet seemed too cruel to satisfy her thirst for revenge.

She would have liked to see her cousin dead in her coffin, and stand by and hear the clods rattling harshly down upon her grave. The sound would have been music in Amber’s ears. From a beautiful, imperious, loving girl, she was transformed into a jealous, angry, revengeful woman. Blighted love had changed the current of her thoughts, her hopes, her very life. She had but one aim now. It was to sweep her lovely rival from her path, and win Cecil Grant’s heart at last.

CHAPTER III.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH.

Fate itself seemed to play into Amber’s hands.

Judge Camden had been away two months, leaving his granddaughters in charge of their chaperon, a distant widowed relative, and he was expected home that evening. Indeed, when Amber came down stairs presently, she found that he had already arrived.

She met him fondly, not through excess of love, for the judge was a stern old man, but because she hoped he had brought her a gift from the great city.

“Oh, grandpapa, welcome home! I have missed you so much!” she cooed, sweetly.

“Umph!” he grunted, ungraciously. “But where is Violet, eh?”

A sullen light gloomed in Amber’s eyes as she answered, quickly:

“She is down at the river with a young man, sir!”

“A young man! Why, what the duse——Mrs. Shirley, madame!” thumping his cane loudly on the floor to frighten the meek little widow. “Now what do you mean by letting that child Violet go gallivanting around with a young man?” he cried, violently.

Mrs. Shirley cowered before his black looks and murmured, deprecatingly:

“Dear me, Judge Camden, Violet is quite seventeen years old, and old enough to walk out with a young man, I suppose, considering that her mother was married at sixteen.”

“Don’t throw her mother up to me, you spiteful creature! Wasn’t it a runaway match, I want to know? And didn’t that wretch, Lieutenant Mead, break my poor girl’s heart in two years with his dissipations? A disgrace to the navy he was, and a good riddance when he died, I say! And what must have become of that poor baby Violet if I hadn’t brought her here and raised her—eh? And now, while I’m away, you let her begin to follow in her mother’s footsteps, you careless woman! But I’ll settle Violet’s future. She shall not elope like poor Marie! I’ve picked out a nice husband for her myself, and she is to be married in a month!”

“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” whimpered the simple little widow, dismayed at this bold declaration, while Amber exclaimed, maliciously, scenting a chance for mischief:

“But, grandpapa, Violet’s engaged already to Cecil Grant!”

Judge Camden sprang from his chair, his handsome old hazel eyes glaring under the beetling white brows. He thundered, furiously:

“No, she isn’t, by Jupiter! She shall marry the man I’ve chosen for her! Cecil Grant, indeed, the young jackanapes! Poor as a church mouse, with nothing but a handsome face and a long pedigree! He’ll never get my Violet, the fortune-hunting young scamp! Go, Amber, and tell her to come here to me instantly!”

Amber obeyed his mandate quickly, only too glad of the chance to separate the lovers.

When she reached the river, she found them saying good-by beneath the willows with lingering glances and shy caresses. Violet was saying:

“You must go away now, dear Cecil, for Amber will be so angry all this evening; and, besides, we are expecting grandpapa home from the World’s Fair at any moment.”

“Then I shall call in the morning to ask him for my darling.”

“Oh, Cecil!” blushingly; but just then Amber appeared, exclaiming:

“Grandpapa has come already, Violet, and has sent me to call you in. He is very impatient to see you.”

Violet flew blithely across the daisied lawn, but Amber lingered on, eager to make up her quarrel with Cecil.

She stood in his path, so that he could not turn away from her, while she murmured, with a gentleness that was new and strange in haughty Amber:

“I spoke hastily just now, Cecil, and did not mean what I said. I forgive you for your cruelty to me, and I want to be your friend, since I cannot be your love, like Violet.”

He thought that he had never seen proud Amber so charming as now, with those downcast eyes and that sad, resigned air, so sweet and gentle. The humble, entreating voice melted his heart.

Besides, he did not feel himself entirely blameless.

A handsome young man has no business paying pointed attentions to a lovely girl, unless he means to propose marriage, and Cecil knew that he had given Madame Grundy some room for gossip.

So it pleased him to find the injured one so willing to condone his fault and claim friendship in lieu of love.

He admired Amber very much, and carried away by her generosity, he warmly pressed her extended hand.

“You are ill, Amber—your hand is hot and burning!” he cried, in dismay.

“No, no! I am excited, that is all! Now, Cecil, we are friends again, are we not? And I will not try to envy Violet’s good fortune if you will give me the second place in your heart.”

She waited for him to answer, and the murmuring river filled up the pause. If he had understood its subtle language, it would have sounded like a note of warning: “Beware!”

But Cecil saw no treachery in the hazel eyes that looked up to him with such mute imploring. Touched by her generosity, he murmured:

“I pledge you my friendship, Amber, next to my love for sweet Violet; and if you ever need a favor, claim it from me as a brother.”

“Thank you, dear, dear Cecil,” she murmured, gratefully, plaintively, and passed out of his sight.

CHAPTER IV.
AMBER’S TRIUMPH.

“Amber, why are you watching over me? My head aches and my eyes are dim. Have I been ill?”

Violet’s voice was very weak and low, and her eyes tried to pierce the dim light of the shaded night-lamp, to watch Amber at the open window in the flood of silvery moonlight.

A week had passed since Judge Camden’s return from Chicago, and ever since the next day Violet had been dangerously ill. Indeed, this was her first conscious hour.

“Have I been ill?” she faltered, weakly, and Amber answered, in a cold voice:

“Yes, so ill for a week that we despaired of your life; but I suppose you will get well now, Violet.”

“Are you sorry, Amber?” for something in the cold voice jarred on her sensitive heart.

“What a silly idea!” and Amber laughed harshly, while Violet’s weak, white hand went up to her brow in a bewildered way.

“Ah, Amber, everything comes back to me!” she sighed, wearily. “Grandpapa came home and was angry with Cecil for loving me. He told my darling we must part forever, that he had chosen a rich man to be my husband. But I rebelled against his cruelty. I vowed I would have no one but my dark-eyed lover, handsome Cecil Grant. Grandpapa was in a towering rage. His eyes blazed with anger; he flew at me, and—and——”

She paused, with a terrible shudder, and Amber coolly finished the sentence.

“That wicked old man forgot he was a gentleman, in the blind heat of his passion at your disobedience, and struck your face with his open hand. You reeled and fell, striking your head on the marble hearth. Then you were unconscious for hours, and since then very ill, sometimes raving, sometimes quiet, but never conscious until now.”

“And grandpapa, poor old man—was he sorry, Amber?”

“He has never relented for a moment, never expressed any repentance. He has ordered your trousseau from New York; and, if you live, you will be married in three weeks.”

“To that mysterious man he has chosen for me, Amber?”

“Yes; but do not excite yourself, Violet. It will make you worse again. Perhaps I ought not to tell you anything more.”

She saw the wild pulsations of Violet’s heart heaving the folds of her white gown, and knew that she had told too much already.

“But, Amber, one—word—more!” and the articulation was faint, because her heart beat so fast and chokingly. “Oh, Amber, what of—Cecil?”

“He went away to-day.”

“Knowing that—I—was ill?”

“Why not, you silly child? He had lost you forever. Grandpapa vowed he would disinherit you if you married him, so Cecil thought it best to break with his dream forever. He knew you could not bear poverty.”

“He did not know me. I could have lived on a crust with Cecil,” sobbed Violet, then plaintively: “Oh, Amber, you have seen him?”

“Violet, you will have a relapse if I tell you any more.”

“I will risk it. Only answer this, dear Amber: You have seen my darling?”

Amber’s crimson lips curved in the silvery moonlight with a slow and cruel smile.

“I have seen him every evening since you were sick. He sent me notes begging me to meet him down by the river. At first it was for news of you; then he changed. Twice he forgot to ask for you, and he seemed to go back to the dear old days before you came, when he loved me so dearly and entirely. Oh, Violet, you won’t mind hearing this now, for you will soon be married to another, and then I know Cecil Grant will come back to me cured of his fleeting fancy for you! But, Violet, why do you laugh so wildly? Heavens! she is raving again!”

It was true. Violet was sitting upright in bed, her hair a cascade of tumbled gold about her shoulders, her cheeks crimson, her lovely eyes bright with fever. From her poor, parched lips poured incoherent babblings, mixed with sad plaints of her lover’s falsity.

Amber gazed at her victim a moment with gloating eyes and stole softly away to her own room, whispering to her guilty heart.

“She has taken a relapse, and the doctor said she would die if she did. Well, what do I care? It would be a lucky thing for me. I would be my grandfather’s sole heiress then, and I could win Cecil by the force of my unbending will. Grandpapa could never frighten me to death as he did Violet! I have a will as stubborn as his own, and I would cajole him into consent some way.”

Mrs. Shirley was lying down to rest for a short time, and Amber knew that the raving girl would be all alone. A thought came to her that perhaps in her delirium she might dash herself out of the open window down to instant death.

But she did not go back to the sick-room. She sat down to refresh herself with some white grapes the maid had brought to her room. She was consumed with curiosity over the man that Judge Camden had chosen for Violet’s husband.

“He says that he is as rich as the Vanderbilts, and that he has a palace in Chicago fit for a king. Violet could live like a queen and be covered with diamonds if she chose, but she prefers Cecil Grant’s love with a crust. So do I, alas, although riches would not go amiss, even with the man one loves,” sighing heavily.

But if everything went as she hoped, Amber would have all that she most desired—wealth and the love of the man for whom she was willing to risk her immortal soul.

CHAPTER V.
THE BRIDE OF DEATH.

Meanwhile Violet had risen from her white couch, strong with the force of fever, and stolen, unnoticed, from the room and the house.

Her poor brain, crazed with the news of her lover’s falsity, had conceived a dreadful plan.

She would seek the spot by the river where Cecil had uttered those sweet, sweet vows of love that he had so quickly broken, and cast herself into the darkling waves, that would hide her forever from the bitterness of her sorrow.

“The bride of death!” she murmured, and sped with tender, bare, white feet, across the daisied lawn.

It was the last night of summer, and the first faint chill of approaching autumn was already in the night air. But the full moon poured a flood of radiant white light over the beautiful country landscape, and the dew, glittering on the grass and flowers, made the world look like fairyland.

Cecil Grant had not gone away as he had told Amber. His heart failed him at the last moment. He had heard in the village that Violet was dying, and he could not tear himself away, although he dared not venture up to the great house, for fear of a scene with the irascible old man, who had been so cruel to him and Violet.

He sought the river-bank, where he had been so happy with his darling, where he had clasped the lissom form in his arms and kissed the sweet, rosy lips.

He remembered how her heart had throbbed against his own, how she had trembled with exquisite joy.

What bright hopes they had cherished! What dreams they had dreamed of wedded bliss! Dreams that faded so soon, for, torn apart from each other, his own heart was breaking, and Violet was dying.

Alone beside the mystic river, whose low voice seemed to be singing her dirge, he watched with anguished eyes the dimly lighted window of the room where his beautiful young love lay dying.

In his tortured brain throbbed echoes of sad verses somewhere read——

“From the altar a myriad tapers down shone,

But they fell on a face and a bosom like stone;

They gleamed in the hair,

But no bride vail was there—

Their quaver and glow could not wake her, my Clare!

“The organ wept softly a wail for the dead,

And the low sound of sobbing kept time to the strain,

While afar to the Future its echoings fled,

To bring back that hour and its desolate pain;

And apart in a spot where the light could not shine,

I knelt in the gloom that henceforward is mine,

As she lay over there,

With no thought and no care,

And she was to have stood there, my bride, my Clare!”

He looked across the lawn to her window, his heart aching to stand by her side, to pillow her dying head on his throbbing breast.

“Dying, and I not there!” he groaned. “Dying, perhaps already dead!”

Suddenly he gave a start of superstitious terror and awe.

Across the grassy lawn a white form was gliding toward him so close that he could see the floating lengths of shining, golden hair, the pale, lovely face, the gleaming eyes, the thin, white gown, and the tiny, bare feet so pearly-white and fair.

“It is Violet!” he moaned. “My darling is dead, and her wraith has flown to her lonely lover to breathe a last farewell!”

She flew past him, as with a rush of wings, and hovered over the river, shrieking, wildly:

“The bride of death!”

CHAPTER VI.
“I HAVE NEVER BEEN FALSE TO YOU, EVEN IN THE MOST SECRET THOUGHT.”

It was the most thrilling moment of Cecil Grant’s life.

In one anguished instant he comprehended that it was no spirit he gazed upon, but Violet Mead herself, crazed by her illness, escaped from her watchers and about to end her sorrows in the deep and rushing river.

With a lightning bound, he flew to the rescue, a cry of terror on his blanched lips, his arms outstretched toward the flying figure, already making the fatal spring, hovering in mid-air, her white garments and golden curls fluttering in the chilly breeze that swayed the willows on the bank.

The silvery moon never shone on a face more deadly pale and anguished than Cecil Grant’s as he realized that a plunge in the cold waters of the river would be fatal to the life of the feverish girl. Already she was at the point of death, and the shock of the immersion would surely extinguish the last feeble flickering spark of her young life.

All in an instant these thoughts rushed over him, blent with a silent prayer to God for help in this hour of deadly peril to his darling.

It seemed to him afterward that surely Heaven, in its divine pity, had lent him wings, or he never could have cleared so quickly the intervening space between him and Violet.

But joy! joy! his outstretched hands clutched the hem of her white robes, and he made a fierce spring, drawing her with him back from the arms of death. In the rapidity of the recoil both fell upon the soft grass.

“Saved! saved!” the young man almost shouted in his delirious joy, and he sprang quickly erect, stripping off his coat to wrap it about Violet’s thinly clad and shivering form.

He raised the golden head upon his arm, cuddling the bare little feet tenderly against his body to protect them from the chilly air, and murmured, tenderly, anxiously:

“Violet! Sweet Violet!”

The large, blue eyes of the poor girl flared wide open, and looked up at him in wild reproach.

“Ah, Cecil! cruel Cecil! you should have let me die!” she moaned, piteously. “You are false to me, and I cannot bear my life!”

Cecil believed that the complaint arose from her fevered mind, and, bending down, he kissed her pale lips with adoring love, then whispered:

“That is only a fancy of your sickness, my own little darling! I love you better than life itself, and I have never been false to you, even in the most secret thought. Why, I have been almost crazed over your sickness! Has not Amber told you how I waited here each night with fond impatience for her to come, and tell me how you were getting on?”

Sweet Violet turned herself feebly on his arm and scanned his earnest face with eager, questioning blue eyes, and his heart ached to feel how light and frail her form had grown with the cruel sickness. With a choking sob in her throat, she cried:

“Amber told me to-night that you loved me no longer—that your heart had turned to her again! Oh, Cecil, it almost killed me to hear that you were false and fickle. When Amber left me alone in the room, I stole away to end my sorrows in the river, here by the bending willows, where you first said you loved me.”

He wondered if Amber had indeed been so false and deceitful as Violet declared, and, holding her tightly in his arms, as though to defend her from death itself, he told her that she had been wickedly deceived, that Amber was false and perjured.

“She knows well how fondly I love you,” he cried, indignantly. “I told her of my love and anxiety every evening when she came to bring me news of you, pretending to be my sincere friend. But I will never trust her again. As for you, my own sweet love, I must take you back to the house again; but before we go, you must tell me that you doubt me no longer—that you will never lose faith in your own true love again. Let me put this little ring on your finger, precious. It is an opal, and is gifted with the power to show whether plighted lovers keep their faith. If false, the gem will grow dull and lifeless, its brightness all gone; but, if true, it will glow with the fiery hues of the furnace. Wear it always, my darling, and let it be the test of my love till the happy day that unites us forever.”

“Alas,” she sighed, “do you not know, dear Cecil, that my grandfather has sworn I shall wed another?”

He kissed the little hand on which he had placed the ring, and answered, fondly:

“Yes; Amber Laurens told me that, Violet; but I was not discouraged, for they cannot force you into a marriage against your will. Only get well and be true to me, my pet, and we will defy the old tyrant, will we not, my bonny bride?”

She clung to him with a murmur of such infinite love and content that he longed to take her in his arms and fly away with her to some great stronghold, where he could defy the grim old judge’s authority, even now; but he knew that it could not be, that every moment out here in the chilly night air made it more certain that she would have a relapse of her illness. He must carry her back to her sick-bed, to those who had cared for her so carelessly as to make this dreadful escapade possible.

But he resolved to rebuke them in scathing terms for their neglect of duty.

With an aching heart he took Violet up in his arms, holding her easily, as if she had been a child, and so carried her back to Golden Willows and the stern old judge, who was raising a terrible storm outdoors, seeking for Violet, whom Mrs. Shirley had but just now missed from her bed.

The hue and cry of search had just begun, and Amber was the center of a group who listened eagerly as she vehemently reiterated that she had left Violet only a moment to get her a fresh drink, and, on returning, found the invalid gone and Mrs. Shirley alone in the room.

Her tale was so plausible that no one doubted it, for who could believe that Amber cherished a secret hatred for her sick cousin and had tortured her almost to madness, then left her to suffer alone?

So the mystery of Violet’s strange disappearance began to deepen, and Judge Camden was sending servants in all directions to search for her, when Cecil Grant came slowly up the moonlighted path across the lawn, with the missing girl in his arms.

They ran to meet him with cries of joy; even the stern old judge was excited; only Amber held back, filled with terrible dismay at this unlooked-for contretemps.

She had believed that Cecil Grant was many miles away from Golden Willows. Why had he returned, and what was he doing here, with Violet clasped in his arms so fondly that it made her heart throb with a cruel, jealous pain.

The young man paused before Judge Camden, and said, coldly:

“Sir, I have the pleasure of restoring to you your granddaughter, whom I have just saved from throwing herself into the river.”

A confused murmur of surprise from all made him raise his voice, as he continued, with indignant emphasis:

“No sick person should be left alone as Violet was, for there is no telling what a fever-distraught brain may rashly prompt an invalid to do; and, sir, if you loved this dear girl as entirely as I do, you would guard her more carefully.”

Judge Camden was so dazed that he made no move to take Violet from Cecil’s arms; he could only stare at him in boundless amazement.