THE MYSTERY
of
SUICIDE PLACE

By
Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

HART SERIES No. 40

(Printed in the United States of America)

PUBLISHED BY
THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY
Cleveland, U. S. A.

CONTENTS.

THE MYSTERY
of
SUICIDE PLACE

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 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 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 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 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, 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.

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 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 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?”

“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 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, 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 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:

“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.

But Floy’s high spirit was up in arms, and she would not be dissuaded from her purpose.

“I shall surely do it, and no one shall prevent me!” she cried; adding: “When we go home to-night, you may leave me at Suicide Place, and I will lock myself in, for I have the keys with me now, and you can go by and tell auntie I stayed all night with one of the girls. In the morning you may send a committee to escort me home in triumph. Why do you all look so pale and frightened? There is no danger, I tell you; I’ve been over the house a hundred times alone, and the only ghosts are rats. It will be rare fun staying there all night!”

No one could dissuade her, so they gave up trying. Everybody was sorry for it, but Otho and his sister, who exchanged furtive looks of satisfaction.

St. George Beresford had not spoken a word during the whole conversation, though his eager, admiring eyes had scarcely left Floy’s lovely flower-like face. He was silent, abstracted, bitterly piqued at Floy’s pronounced indifference to himself.

She had not seemed to see him since the first glance in which she had acknowledged their introduction by Otho Maury, and of course he could not know that it was because Otho had said to her at the cottage gate last night:

“My sister Maybelle will be at the picnic to-morrow with her handsome betrothed—the rich New Yorker she is to marry this fall. She is as jealous of him as a little Turk, and it makes her angry for any other girl to even look at him.”

He had counted rightly on Floy’s high sense of honor.

She was a mischievous little madcap, but she respected Maybelle’s rights, and feigned indifference to Beresford, although she could not avoid noticing the ardent glance he threw in her direction, and she thought, indignantly:

“No wonder Maybelle is jealous, for I can see already that he’s a wretched flirt. I won’t even look at him, though he is awfully, awfully handsome!”

So with a sigh, whose subtle meaning she could not understand, she turned her back on the wretched Beresford, and entered readily into an animated conversation with Otho, maddening her silent admirer with such keen jealousy that he could bear it no longer.

“Let us go and dance,” he said to Maybelle, hoarsely.

“Oh, I’m too lazy to move. Go and find another partner,” she laughed.

“But I’m not acquainted with any of the girls here.”

“Otho, go along and introduce him to some girls, and I’ll stay with Floy and tell her about my lovely trip to Europe last year.”

Beresford, disappointed in a faint hope that she might have proffered Floy to him as a partner, went away with Otho, and Maybelle made herself agreeable to her companion.

At last she observed, patronizingly:

“You’ve never been anywhere, have you, Floy?”

“Not since mamma brought me a little girl back to the farm,” Floy answered, flushing sensitively, for she felt the sting in Maybelle’s patronizing tone.

But the latter continued, gently and purringly:

“It’s too bad your having to stay with those poor, hard-working people, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you like to support yourself, Floy?”

“I should not know how to earn a penny,” murmured Floy, who was like the naughty Brier-Rose of the poem:

“Whene’er a thrifty matron this idle maid espied,

She shook her head in warning and scarce her wrath could hide;

For girls were made for housewives, for spinning-wheel and loom,

And not to drink the sunshine and the flowers’ sweet perfume.

“But out she skipped the meadows o’er and gazed into the sky,

Her heart o’erbrimmed with gladness, she scarce herself knew why;

And to a merry tune she hummed: ‘Oh, Heaven only knows

Whatever will become of the naughty Brier-Rose?’”

“Suppose I tell you what papa was saying about you last night?” continued Maybelle.

“Yes,” Floy answered, helplessly.

“He was saying that he needed two new salesgirls in his big dry-goods store in New York, and he wondered if any girls in Mount Vernon would like to go. He said he had thought of you, and that maybe old John Banks would be glad to have you find a situation and help earn your own living.”

Floy reddened, paled, then gasped:

“I don’t believe Uncle John would like it at all. He loves me—he and auntie—and he doesn’t mind taking care of me.”

“But you’ll tell him of this offer, won’t you, dear, and you’ll think of it yourself? Papa says he’ll keep the place open a week for you,” said Maybelle, who had suggested the plan to Mr. Maury herself.

“I’ll tell Uncle John,” promised Floy; but she seemed tongue-tied after that, and went moodily away from Maybelle’s vicinity to join some other girls, keeping so resolutely away that they did not meet again until that afternoon, when most of the dancers were resting after dinner on the banks of the beautiful river.

At heart Floy was cruelly wounded by Maybelle’s patronizing, but she was too proud to show her pain. Once St. George Beresford ventured to seek her for a partner in the dance, but she refused so curtly that he turned away indignantly, wondering why she was so cold to him while so kind to others.

“She has plenty of smiles for that shallow Otho. I’d like to wring his little black neck!” he thought, angrily.

Otho was a cur, indeed, but he was slight and dark and elegant—one of those types that very young girls rave over. Beresford saw that he stood high in Floy’s good graces, and began to hate him accordingly.

When the couples paired off on the river-bank beneath the shady trees, there was Maybelle and Beresford, and next to them Floy and Otho.

Floy was bright and restless, feeling Beresford’s gaze ever seeking hers, and wondering why it thrilled her so when she knew it was not right for him to look at any other than Maybelle, his beautiful, dark-eyed betrothed.

She turned her back on him rather rudely, and exclaimed to Otho:

“People are very foolish and superstitious. They are always going on about Suicide Place, and saying that it must claim another victim soon; and they are even hinting that I will be the doomed one.”

“That is nonsense. I am sure you are too strong-minded to yield to such a temptation,” Otho replied, reassuringly.

St. George could not help listening to the sound of the musical voice and watching the beautiful profile when it turned toward him in her animated talk.

Heavens, how lovely she was! What eyes, what lips, what dimples, what a mesh of curly, golden hair in which to entangle a man’s throbbing heart! And yet it was not simply her beauty that inthralled him, and he knew it. She had that psychical charm we call personal magnetism, that is like the perfume to the flower and seems to endow it with a soul.

He heard her continue, almost defiantly, as if annoyed:

“I wish they would not talk about it, for it makes me angry. Why should I kill myself? I’m young and gay, and, in a way, happy! And yet,” musingly, “I suppose, after all, that the terrible taint of that mania is in my blood. I am not superstitious, but perhaps it may conquer me after all, who knows? Do you suppose I shall ever kill myself?”

“I hope not. You would break a dozen hearts if you did, mine among the rest,” Otho replied, banteringly, with a killing glance.

She continued, meditatively:

“They will go on expecting me to commit suicide, of course, and always selecting the old farm as the scene of the fifth tragedy. Why should I not choose some other scene for the final act? This river, say,” pointing to it as it rippled below the bank, dark and deep and dangerous in its beauty.

Laughing, she rose to her feet, and he said:

“It seems that fate always demands the sacrifice within the gates of the grim old place.”

“Do you think so? Well, I shall defy the fate to which I was born, and break the charm of Suicide Place. If, following the taint in my blood, I must indeed kill myself, I shall disappoint everybody in the location. It shall not be at the old farm, but—here!”

Then all at once the startling tragedy happened.

Floy stepped to the edge of the bank with a strange, mocking laugh on her red lips, and, as if the terrible mania had seized on her suddenly, red-handed and implacable as fate itself, she threw up her arms above her beautiful head, and leaped into the river that divided hungrily to receive the girlish form, then closed again greedily over its prey.

CHAPTER V.
THE REASON WHY.

Pretty Floy’s startling, unexpected, and terrible action produced the effect of a thunder-clap on the gay and thoughtless crowd of young people who witnessed it.

A moment of blank, awed silence ensued, then every one seemed to join in a cry of alarm and dismay as they pressed forward to the banks and watched the eddying circles of water over the deep and dangerous spot where that lovely form had disappeared from view.

They watched eagerly for the golden head to reappear.

Meanwhile, Otho Maury sat motionless gazing at the water, his face marble-white, but in his eyes, beneath their lowered lids, a strange and devilish gleam of joy, as he thought to himself:

“How deuced clever in the little girl to hasten the dénouement of her life like this! It saves Maybelle and me a world of trouble.”

As for Maybelle, when Floy sprung into the water, she uttered one loud, hysterical shriek, and clutched her companion with both hands, hiding her dark eyes against his shoulder as though she could not bear the sight of the river.

But in an instant Beresford recovered from his trance of horror, and struggled to release himself and rise.

But Maybelle clung to him so wildly that he could not loosen her grasp without hurting the clinging white hands.

“Do not leave me—do not leave me, St. George! I am so frightened!” she wailed, beseechingly.

“Otho! Otho!” called Beresford, sternly; and as Maury looked around with a dazed expression, he added: “Come to your sister—I must save that girl!”

Otho did not stir from his position, pretending not to understand, and Maybelle tightened her frantic clutch until he saw that he must use gentle force to release himself.

“I beg your pardon, but in common humanity I must go,” he said, resolutely, and wrenched himself free, rushing forward, throwing off his coat and hat as he went. Then, amid ringing cheers, the big, handsome fellow plunged into the river.

Out of that crowd of perhaps fifty young men he was the only one that had volunteered to save the drowning girl, although half a score of them had pretended to adore her.

As Beresford sprung into the water, Floy’s little head suddenly appeared above it some distance away from where she had sunk. He struck out in that direction, shouting to her to be brave, that he would save her life.

But at the sound of his voice, the girl’s head suddenly sunk beneath the water again, as though she were determined to accomplish her purpose of suicide.

Our hero, swimming with strong and gallant strokes toward the spot, made a bold dive down to the depths, but rose again without Floy.

Directly her head bobbed up again some distance off, but swimming quickly toward her, Beresford grasped her where she lay easily floating on the water, not having realized in his excitement that she had been swimming furtively under the water, leading him a race for the fun of the thing, for she was not in the least danger.

Grasping her tightly, he said in hoarse tones, broken with joyful emotion:

“Thank Heaven, I reached you before you sunk again! It was a terrible thing you attempted, but I shall save you in spite of yourself.”

Floy laughed softly, and answered in a meek little voice:

“Oh, I’m sorry now that I did it. I don’t believe I want to die after all!”

“That is right,” he cried, heartily. “Now, be calm, and I will take you safely to the shore. Put your hands on my shoulder easily, like this,” placing them. “Be cool, and don’t get frightened and clutch at me—above all, don’t clasp my neck, for the current is very deep and strong, and you must not impede my motions. Do you understand?”

“Oh, yes; and I’ll do as you say. I—I should have liked to hold you around the neck, but if you object to it so seriously, I won’t.”

Was there a tone of exquisite raillery in the girl’s voice? He looked suspiciously into her face, and saw veiled mischief in the clear blue eyes. She was not frightened—not in the least.

“Thank you,” he returned, coolly, but with a fast-beating heart. “I am sure the experience would be delightful; and if you like to try it after we are safe on land, I shall be most happy.”

“I hate you!” pouted Floy, and letting her hands slip, sunk again below the surface.

Terribly alarmed, he dived and brought her safely to the surface once more, saying, sternly:

“Do not be so careless again, or you may lose your life.”

To his amazement, she laughed mockingly.

“Swim on and I’ll keep by your side. Don’t be alarmed over me, for I’ve been doing all this for a purpose. I can swim like a fish.”

And, to his wonder and chagrin, for he felt himself grow hot even in the cold water with the thought that he had suddenly been turned from a conquering hero into an object of ridicule, Fly-away Floy, the merry little madcap, swam along by his side as easily and gracefully as a beautiful mermaid, until they reached the bank, when he gave her his hand to assist her, and they came again upon terra firma, greeted by admiring cheers from the onlookers.

While they were in the water, Otho had hurried to Maybelle, and whispered, hoarsely:

“Why didn’t you hold him tighter, you little fool? If you could have kept him from going to her assistance a short time, she would have been drowned and out of your way.”

“I knew it, and I tried to keep him back, but he shook me off in a rage, and I—I’m sure he even swore at me under his breath,” whimpered Maybelle, despairingly.

“Very likely,” grumbled Otho; and then he turned from her to watch Beresford’s progress, and saw to his amazement the man and girl clambering up the bank.

In the silence that followed the rousing cheer of joy at their return, Floy turned to her dripping cavalier, saying demurely:

“I thank you from my heart, Mr. Beresford, for your noble attempt to save my life. I was not in any danger, it is true, for I can swim like a duck, but of course you did not know that, and you are just as truly a real hero as if your brave attempts had indeed saved me from a watery grave.”

There was a swelling murmur of surprise from all around her, and one little girl, bolder than the rest, came up and said:

“Why, Floy, didn’t you intend to drown yourself after all?”

Floy tossed back her wet curly mass of short ringlets, and returned merrily:

“Of course not, little goosie; why should I be so silly as to kill myself, I that am so young and happy? I only jumped in to frighten you all—yes, and to test the courage of a gentleman who told us only this morning how much he adored physical courage.”

Her accusing blue eyes turned on Otho Maury, and she said, with light, laughing scorn:

“I thought as you pretended to be so very, very fond of me, that you would risk your life to save mine, but you proved yourself a coward after all!”

He was livid with secret, sullen rage, but putting a bold face on the matter, he answered, carelessly:

“Oh, I knew it was only a trick, and that you could swim as well as anybody; so I didn’t choose to humor your fancy to have me jump in the water and ruin my new fifty-dollar suit, like my friend Beresford here, who, it’s plain to be seen, is as mad as a March hare at the way he was fooled. Come, mon ami, shall I drive you into town for some dry clothes?”

“If you please,” returned Beresford, who was indeed bitterly chagrined at being made the butt of such a joke, and angrily conscious of cutting such a poor figure among them all in his drenched clothing. He picked up his hat and coat and went away with Otho, who returned alone within the hour, saying that Beresford was in the sulks and wouldn’t come back.

“And as for you, little mischief,” he said, banteringly, to Floy, who had been over to a house close by and borrowed a pretty suit, in which she reappeared as fresh as a rose—“as for you, the lordly Beresford will never forgive you for making him appear ridiculous by jumping into the river to rescue a girl who could swim as well as he could. He said he should have liked to shake you for a naughty, saucy little vixen.”

“Who cares?” returned Floy, gayly, not the least abashed by Mr. Beresford’s resentment.

When the picnic was over, Maybelle slyly reminded her of her promise about Suicide Place.

“Oh, yes, I’m going to spend the night there, certainly,” she replied; and left the carriage at the gates of the grim old house, in spite of the remonstrances of many of the party, who were really uneasy at the thought of such a daring adventure.

Floy would not listen to any of them; she answered them with careless, merry banter; and as the carriages rolled away, they saw her standing inside the gates, waving her little hand in farewell, her slender, white-robed figure clearly defined in the gloom of the falling twilight.

CHAPTER VI.
A DREAM OF ROSES.

Merry little Floy went dancing like a sunbeam through the dark oak grove, and sat down to rest on the porch before she entered the house for her night’s vigil.

She rested there while the full moon rose over the tree-tops, silvering the scene with an unearthly light, and throwing fantastic leaf-shadows on the short green grass. It was like an enchanted palace, so calm, so quiet, undisturbed by any sound save the plaintive call of a whip-poor-will away off in the dim, silent woods.

She mused a little soberly on the events of the day.

“That big coward, Otho Maury, I was beginning to fancy myself in love with him, but—I despise him now!” curving a red, disdainful lip. “And how I fooled them all! They really thought I was attempting suicide! Ha, ha! But how splendid Maybelle’s fiancé was; how brave, how cool, and if only—he wasn’t engaged, I believe I should have lost my heart to him—so there!”

Perhaps she had lost her heart to him anyway, in spite of Maybelle, for she could not get the thought of the big, handsome, brown-eyed fellow out of her little curly head, and she recalled with a sudden warm wave of color rushing to her face the audacious frankness of the words he had said to her in the water, answering her saucy jest:

“I’m sure the experience would be delightful, and if you like to try it when we are safe on land, I shall be most happy.”

Floy had thrilled with sweet ecstasy at his daring words, and now she said, audaciously:

“Yes, I—I should like to try it! I should throw my arms around his big neck and hug him tight, and kiss his sweet, brave lips, the beautiful hero, only——” and the words trailed off into a deep sigh at the sudden thought of Maybelle, who stood between them.

And like a dash of cold water came the memory of Otho’s words.

Beresford was angry with her for the joke she had played, and would like to shake her for a naughty, saucy little vixen.

“Let him try it—that’s all!” she exclaimed, shaking her bright head defiantly, then leaning it half despondently on her arm.

Wearied by the pleasures of the long, bright day, she sunk into slumber.

Sweet dreams came to her there in the fragrant gloom of the warm spring night.

To her fancy she was walking with St. George Beresford in a beautiful rose garden.

Overhead there leaned a sky all darkly, beautifully blue, while little fleecy clouds tempered the golden brightness of noon.

From afar there came to her the soft murmur of the sea blended with low, soft music divinely sweet and tender—the music of love.

All around her were the rarest roses filling the summer air with fragrance—roses intwining shady bowers of lattice-work, roses wreathing triumphal arches, roses bordering long winding walks, delicious thickets of roses so dense that the sun’s rays had not yet dried the dew from their velvet petals.

On her head was a wreath of pink roses, at the waist of her beautiful fleecy white gown, were white and pink ones blended in exquisite contrast.

By her side, with his arm about her slender, supple waist, walked handsome St. George Beresford.

They were lovers.

And in this beautiful rose garden they seemed to be as much alone as Adam and Eve were in Eden.

No faintest sound of the great surging, wicked world intruded on the delicious solitude—nothing came to their hearing save the low murmur of the distant sea, that soft music breathing the soul of love, and the song of birds mating and nesting in the rose-trees that shook down their bloomy petals in rosy clouds over every path.

They did not miss nor want the world in this Eden. They were all in all to each other, this beautiful pair of lovers.

They roamed here and there with their arms about each other, speaking but little, only now and then Beresford would pause to draw her into his arms and caress her, murmuring between ardent kisses:

“My only love, my bride!”

Beautiful, dark-eyed, jealous Maybelle Maury was forgotten just as entirely as though she had never existed. They were blissfully happy in this dream that Floy was dreaming there that May night in the grim shadow of Suicide Place.

But suddenly a dark, portentous cloud overspread the sky, and a low rumble of thunder shook the earth.

The soft voice of the sea changed to a hollow roar, as though a storm were lashing its waves into fury, and the tender music wailed itself into silence like the cry of a broken heart. The winds rose and lashed the rose-trees in a furious gale, till the air was full of their flying petals and spicy perfumes. The song-birds fled affrighted, and their little nests were dashed upon the ground.

“Oh, I am so frightened! Save me!” sobbed pretty Floy, clinging to her fond lover, who clasped and kissed her again, whispering that there was no danger for her while he was by his little darling’s side.

But at that very moment a flash of lightning irradiated the gloom, and Floy saw a woman dashing toward her in insane fury.

She had the dark, beautiful, jealous face of Maybelle Maury, and she rushed between them and thrust Floy away.

“Go, girl, go! He is mine, mine, mine!” she was crying, madly, when all at once Floy awoke, as we do in dreams at some moment of unbearable grief and woe.

Her dream had been only half a dream, after all.

The moonlight was darkened by clouds, there was low, rumbling thunder, followed by flashes of lightning, and a fitful rain was driven into the porch by the wayward wind, wetting Floy’s face and hands and dress. It was this that had woven itself in with her dream and awakened her to unpleasant reality.

Dazed and wondering, she sprung to her feet, and it was several minutes before she could realize her position.

Then it came to her that Maybelle had dared her to spend a night alone at Suicide Place, and she had vowed she would do it.

She had come and fallen asleep on the porch and dreamed that exquisite dream that was so lovely until—Maybelle came.

“How strange that I should dream of Maybelle’s lover—and dream that he was mine!” she murmured, wonderingly, as she hurried into the house out of the muttering storm.

Fortunately she had brought some matches, and she knew that there was a lamp in the parlor, so letting herself in, she hurriedly lighted the lamp, throwing its feeble glare on the dark oak furniture of the long apartment.

“Whew! what a musty old place!” she ejaculated, throwing open a window, heedless of the fine mist of rain that came blowing in, mixed with delicious fresh air and gusts of delicate perfume from great lilac-trees outside loaded with white and purple blooms.

Then she uttered a cry of dismay and looked back half fearfully over her shoulder at a piano in a dark corner.

The lid was closed, but from the keys were coming low, discordant sounds, as of music played by childish hands all ignorant of time or tune. It was terrible, that sound, and Floy, who had never known fear before, felt as if ice-cold water were trickling down her spine.

Then a quick suspicion came to her, and running straight to the instrument, she threw back the lid.

Several mice that, alarmed by her entrance, had been running up and down the keys, producing discordant notes, jumped out upon the floor and ran away into the dark corners with little frightened squeaks.

Floy laughed aloud merrily:

“Just as I suspected, after my first moment of terror at that sudden sound. But a cowardly person would have sworn it was a ghost playing the piano. I wonder if that discord was the sweet music I heard in my dream?”

She threw herself into a large easy-chair cushioned in leather, and closed her eyes.

“I am not the least bit afraid—not the least,” she declared aloud. “But I wish I could go to sleep again and dream the first half of that lovely dream.”

But slumber refused to visit her eyes again. She felt preternaturally wide awake.

Rising, she paced up and down the room, listening to the muttering of the storm outside, and the wild rain driving against the creaking old windows.

Several old family portraits hung against the walls, and the eyes of those buried ancestors seemed to follow her up and down with grim curiosity as she moved to and fro.

Such a thing will seriously annoy one sometimes. The eyes of a portrait may take on a living look, and render one horribly nervous when alone at midnight.

Those following eyes, so persistent in their stare, annoyed Floy, and gave her the same creepy chill down her back that she had felt when the mice scurried over the piano keys.

She could not resist a sudden longing to escape from the room, and from the grim scrutiny of her pictured ancestors.

Taking the lamp in her hand, she started out to explore the house.

Hurrying along the draughty hall, and in and out of the musty old rooms familiar to her childhood, the girl tried to dispel the shadow that began to fall on her spirits like an ominous cloud.

Presently, over the roar of the storm outside, her voice rang out in a loud, wild, terrified shriek thrice repeated—then awful silence.

CHAPTER VII.
AT THE DREAD HOUR OF MIDNIGHT.

Half an hour passed by slowly.

The storm was over.

The lightning, thunder, and rain had ceased, and the moon was coming out from the black wrack of clouds where she had hidden her glory.

Her silver light shone again upon the sleeping world, and flashed into the parlor window that Floy had opened before she left the room half an hour ago.

In the sheen of the moonlight, the staring eyes of the portraits on the wall seemed to be watching eagerly for their descendant to reappear.

The hall door opened softly, and Floy staggered across the threshold, bearing the lamp unsteadily in her small hand.

What a change had come over the sparkling riante face!

She was pale to the lips—pale as a ghost, as the saying goes—and there was a strange expression in her blue eyes, as if they had looked upon something uncanny.

With an unsteady step, as though she trembled in every limb, the lamp flaring dismally in her grasp, she dragged herself across the room to a long swinging mirror between the windows, and held the light up over her golden head, looking at herself carefully, as she whispered:

“I wonder if my hair has turned white?”

The words, coupled with her appalling shrieks of half an hour ago, proved two facts. First, that Floy had sustained a severe shock of some kind, since only sudden fright or grief is supposed to whiten the hair in a single hour; and secondly, that she was recovering from her alarm, as manifested by her anxiety over her personal appearance.

The long mirror gave her back faithfully the beautiful form with the graceful swelling curves of dawning womanhood, and the lovely face lighted by clear blue eyes, and crowned by waves of crinkly gold above the frank white brow.

No, her hair had not turned white, despite the untold horror that had shaken her soul to the center. Not even one silver thread shone among the gold.