The Strength of Love by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
Street and Smith Publishers
New York

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The Strength of Love;

OR,

LOVE IS LORD OF ALL

BY

Mrs. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

AUTHOR OF

“When We Two Parted,” “Lady Gay’s Pride,” “Sworn to Silence,” “Eric Braddon’s Love,” and many other romances of American life published exclusively in the Eagle and New Eagle Series, each of which is of the most intense interest.

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

Copyright, 1896
By George Munro’s Sons

The Strength of Love

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THE STRENGTH OF LOVE.

CHAPTER I.
RIVALS IN LOVE.

When Dallas Bain and Royall Sherwood, with the dashing young widow, Mrs. Fleming, drove down the village street in their fine landau that summer afternoon, Daisie Bell stood on the steps of her aunt’s cottage, plucking the purple wistaria blooms from the vines above her head, and the picture she made in her youth and grace stayed in both the men’s hearts till they died.

Just a slip of a girl—perhaps seventeen or eighteen—gowned very simply, in white, with lavender ribbons at throat and waist; but her figure was grace and symmetry itself; and her face—well, men have died for faces less fair than hers, with its dusk-violet eyes, blue in the light, black in the shade, under the fringed curtain of jetty lashes that contrasted so vividly with the living gold of her hair as it swept in loose waves over her shoulders.

Both the young men gazed at this charming vision in frank delight, and as the unknown beauty and the gay little widow exchanged formal bows, exclaimed simultaneously:

“Who is that beautiful girl?”

Mrs. Fleming frowned jealously, bit her red lips, and answered, with some asperity:

“What geese men are! Always caught by theatricals! Couldn’t you both see that the bold thing was just posing for your benefit?”

“How exceedingly kind of her, to be sure! We certainly enjoyed the tableau very much,” lisped Royall Sherwood, a rich young man of the genus dude, who was Mrs. Fleming’s cousin, and visiting her at her summer home in Maryland, having brought with him Dallas Bain, a new friend he had made on the return trip from Europe, a month ago.

“I don’t know a thing about him, except that he’s clever and handsome, and seems to have plenty of money; but I like him immensely, so I brought him here with me, and if you’re not pleased you can just ship us both when you get tired,” Royall said coolly to his cousin, who answered gayly:

“I’ll never get tired, I assure you; the dear boy is too charming.”

That was ten days ago, and as time went by she found him more charming than ever, though there was about him a careless insouciance, a cynical indifference to her wiles, that piqued her into deeper earnestness, so that by the end of the first week she was passionately in love, and using every feminine art to bring him to her feet.

And, never having loved before, despite several pronounced flirtations, she was desperately in earnest.

At only twenty-five, she was the widow of an old man whom she had married for his money when she was only nineteen years old. Three years later he obligingly died, and left her the mistress of half a million, which she was enjoying in royal fashion. A selfish, careless little beauty, she had never felt the great passion of life till she met Dallas Bain, whose large, dark, flashing eyes had pierced her heart in a moment with love’s keen arrow.

She set herself to win him without a thought of defeat, for she was very pretty in a doll-like fashion, petite, with turquoise-blue eyes, and crinkly flaxen hair always in the most picturesque disorder. Not a fear of rivalry crossed her mind, for although she had several young girls as guests, she had been careful to invite only those who were plain-looking enough to serve as a foil to her own beauty. To Daisie Bell she had never given a thought till this moment, when, on their drive, the coachman had turned into Temple Street just to vary the route, and her visitors had seen the young girl in her wondrous beauty, that, once seen, could never be forgotten.

What a careless encounter it seemed, yet one fraught with fate!

“Couldn’t you both see that the bold thing was just posing for your benefit?” she exclaimed, in jealous alarm; and Royall had answered as above recorded, winking significantly at his friend; but Dallas said not a word, but gazed, with his heart in his eyes, at the beauty till she was out of sight.

Then he drew a long breath that was mingled delight and pain, and cried eagerly:

“But who is she, Mrs. Fleming?”

“Yes, who is she, and why haven’t we met her at your receptions, Lutie?” added Royall.

Tossing her head and curling a scornful lip, the lady returned maliciously:

“Oh, she isn’t in our set at all—only a poor relation of some people here; a teacher, or shop girl from New York, who comes here every summer to visit her kin and rest from work. And they’re all poor, as you can see from the back street and the five-roomed cottage.”

She thought that this explanation ought to settle the subject forever; but Royall persisted:

“Lutie, why don’t you tell us her name?”

“Well, then,” snappishly, “it is Daisie Bell.”

“Well, she is a daisy, and no mistake, and a belle, too—the rarest beauty I ever saw; and I’m bound to know her soon. I’m in love at first sight.”

His cousin frowned, and cried sharply:

“Royall, you shan’t turn that simple girl’s head with your flatteries.”

“I tell you, Lutie, I’m in dead earnest!”

“Nonsense!”

Dallas Bain said nothing, but his deep eyes gleamed with a subtle fire, and he resolved that he, too, would make the acquaintance of the lovely girl whose single earnest glance had thrilled him so deeply that it seemed to him already that she must be his fate.

It was strange how much business the two young men had on Temple Street the next few days, either riding or walking, and always watching eagerly for another glimpse of the fair face that had charmed them so.

Once they saw her again on the porch, and twice at the upper window, and finally they met her coming out of her gate, apparently going for a morning call.

She blushed brightly at their admiring glances, and stepped briskly in front of them, walking along for about two blocks, setting them wild with her graceful carriage, like a young princess, then stopped and went into a house whose occupants they knew as acquaintances of Mrs. Fleming.

They nudged each other, and Royall exclaimed eagerly:

“Let us go in and call on that pretty little Miss Janowitz. Then she will introduce us to the beauty.”

But Dallas Bain hesitated, though his heart was following the girl inside.

He said tentatively:

“It does not look quite fair to force an acquaintance. Let us try for an introduction in a more proper way.”

“A fig for the proprieties! I’m bound to get up a flirtation with that beautiful creature,” vowed Royall recklessly, opening the gate and going in while nodding a gay farewell to his friend, who turned away with a jealous pang at his heart, though muttering to himself:

“If she would flirt with him, she is not worth my winning.”

Royall Sherwood was cordially welcomed by Miss Annette Janowitz, a charming little brunette, as brilliant and restless as a humming bird.

“I have seen you passing several times this week, and I wondered if you were looking for me,” she said gayly. “But let me introduce you to my friend, Miss Bell.”

They bowed to each other, Royall with empressement, Daisie with reserve; for, having seen him in the vicinity of her home so much lately, she rather suspected the conquest she had made, but resented this way of forcing an acquaintance.

“The impudence!” she thought resentfully, while Annette continued to chatter gayly, flashing her dangerous black eyes at him.

“I saw Mr. Bain leaving you at the gate. Why didn’t he come in, also?”

“Dallas Bain? Oh, I asked him to come in, but he refused, and went back to Sea View alone. Fact is, he has no eyes for any woman but my cousin, Lutie Fleming. Most absorbing flirtation I ever saw, really,” returned Royall, trying thus early to make a clever move in the game of love, and checkmate Dallas, whom he knew might prove a dangerous rival for Daisie’s heart.

Miss Bell was very quiet. She sat with downcast eyes, playing with a rose in her belt, the seashell glow coming and going on her cheeks with some secret excitement. Royall wondered if it were emotion at his presence or pique that Dallas had not cared for her society. He decided that it must be the latter, for she soon brought her call to an end without having spoken a dozen words to him, and he did not dare offer to walk home with her, as he longed to do.

He felt a jealous certainty that she was vexed at Dallas, and decided that it would take some scheming to divert her thoughts from his handsome friend.

“But I’ll do it, for my heart’s gone, and I’m almost tempted to ask her to marry me already, even if she is poor and not in our set, as Lutie says. But, Jove! She’s the grandest beauty in the world! And wouldn’t she make a sensation as my bride, covered with diamonds! Yes, I’ll win her if I can, and I must manage to keep Dallas out of the running, for she could not help showing disappointment when I said that about his flirting with Lutie; but I’ll make her forget him directly, and all the better for her, too, since I’m the better match of the two,” cogitated Royall, who, though he knew that his effeminate blond beauty, so like his cousin’s, could not compare with the dark splendor of tall and striking Dallas Bain, still considered that his golden charms more than counterbalanced the difference.

“All is fair in love or war,” he said coolly; and, pursuant of his scheme to keep Dallas away from Daisie, he said to him that evening:

“Just as well that you didn’t go in to see Miss Bell to-day. She is disappointing, really. Pretty as a picture, of course, but so bread-and-butterish and schoolgirly, you know. Always posing for effect, as my cousin said, but not much to her, after all, but simpers and giggles.”

Dallas felt a keen thrill of disappointment and disgust, for Daisie’s face had haunted him for many days, and it gave him a shock to think that she was like what Royall said—simpering and giggling like a silly schoolgirl. The young widow had treated him to enough of that, trying to pose as girlish, despite her three years of wifehood and two of widowhood, and he decided that he did not care to know Daisie now, since even the careless Royall was no longer interested.

CHAPTER II.
THE OTHER ONE.

When Daisie Bell sat reading on the porch next day, a messenger brought her a basket of rare flowers and a note from Royall Sherwood, asking permission to call on her that evening.

She went in to her aunt, asking demurely what she ought to answer.

“Why, let him come, of course! Daisie Bell, you’re a lucky girl. This Royall Sherwood is a millionaire, they tell me, and your face is pretty enough to win him, or any other man.”

“Then I wish it had been the other man,” thought Daisie sadly, as she went to answer the note.

“The other man” meant Dallas Bain, whose dark, manly beauty and earnest glance into her eyes had made a deep impression on her heart.

His face was haunting her just as hers haunted him. It was a case of mutual attraction—of love at first sight.

Heaven had made these two for each other, but adverse forces were busy driving them apart.

Since Daisie had heard that Dallas was in love with the young widow, she tried to drive his handsome face from her thoughts, and since Dallas had been told that she was a simpering giggler he did not try to see her any more, and regretted that he had anonymously sent her a passionate love poem.

Yet he could not have helped being glad if he could have seen how she read and reread it in blushing solitude, with an unerring conviction that he had sent it—her hero of the brilliant dark eyes and winning smile.

But now, when told that he loved another, she cherished painful doubts.

“I must be mistaken, since he did not care to know me, and went past when Mr. Sherwood came in. Oh, why do I care? I do not even know him, unless our souls spoke to each other in our glances when he passed me by. And, of course, he is in love with that lovely little Lutie Fleming. Yet I hoped—and was vain enough to fancy—that he sent me these sweet verses,” half sobbed the girl, yet still reading them over with a thrill at her heart.

Sweet girl, though only once we met,

That meeting I can ne’er forget;

And though we never meet again,

Remembrance will thy form retain.

What though we never silence broke,

Our eyes a sweeter language spoke;

And soul’s interpreters, the eyes,

Spurn cold restraints and scorn disguise.

Now as on thee my memory ponders,

Perchance to me thine also wanders;

This for myself at least I’ll say:

Thy form appears through night, through day.

Awake, with it, my fancy teems;

In sleep it smiles in fleeting dreams;

The vision charms the hours away,

And bids me curse Aurora’s ray

For breaking slumbers of delight,

Which make me wish for endless night.

Since—oh, whate’er my future fate,

Shall joy or woe my steps await,

By hopeless love’s wild storm beset,

Thy image I can ne’er forget!

“Perhaps Mr. Sherwood sent the verses,” she sighed, in her sad disappointment; but on comparing them with his note she saw that the writing was distinctly different, leaving her still a little fluttering hope that Dallas Bain had indeed sent the poem, bitterly as she was piqued that he had not cared to make her acquaintance.

When Royall called that evening she looked her loveliest, gowned in her favorite white, and she made herself most charming, hoping, dear heart, that he would tell Dallas Bain that she was such a charming girl he really ought to make her acquaintance.

But nothing was farther from Royall’s thoughts. He was delighted to find that she was rarely gifted and intelligent, but he kept his knowledge closely to himself, never letting his friend know that he was pursuing his acquaintance with Daisie, though he contrived to see her every day in the week, and even took her to drive one afternoon when the coast was clear, Dallas having stayed in to write some important letters.

She was very kind and friendly with Royall, but he saw that she took a secret, eager interest in Dallas, listening eagerly when he talked of him, though he was careful never to say anything good, still hoping to turn her heart to himself.

In fact, he pretended to decry the engagement he assumed to be existing between Dallas and his pretty cousin.

“If I had guessed at anything like this, I’d never have brought him to Sea View—never!” he said. “In fact, I told Lutie so to her face. I said: ‘I haven’t the least idea of his antecedents, and you ought not to encourage him unless he explains everything.’ But she was so infatuated with the fellow she wouldn’t even let me hint such a thing to him, and he’s as reticent over himself as if he were an escaped convict—which he may be, for all we know,” argued Royall.

Daisie suppressed a sigh, and asked carelessly:

“But doesn’t he seem very nice? Isn’t he well educated, and—and—doesn’t he write a fine hand?”

Royall fell into her little trap, and answered:

“Oh, his manner is charming; that’s what made me take up with him first, you know—so frank and friendly; and he seems to be college bred. As for his writing—see,” and he exhibited to the trembling girl some random papers from his notebook, scribbled over with his friend’s name and some poetical quotations.

He did not notice that Daisie trembled, that the color rushed to her cheek and the light to her eyes, from pure joy.

The writing was identical with the poem. Her heart told her the truth. Dallas Bain had written her those sweet verses. He loved her, after all.

“I see how it is,” she thought, with keenest pain. “When he first saw me, his heart went out to me, as did mine to him, in the thrilling glance we exchanged. But he was already pledged to another, and could not retreat in honor; so he dared not trust himself to know me better. That was why the verses breathed such hopeless sadness.”

There was balm in the thought, for his avoidance had wounded her cruelly until she thought she had fathomed the cause.

Alas! Alas! Strange decree of fate. Between this pair, who had never even spoken to each other, only looked into each other’s eyes, love had been born full-grown, though each tried to thrust it away—she, believing it was hopeless; he, because he had been told by a false schemer that she was as silly as she was fair.

“I am sorry now that I sent her the poem. I hope she will never find me out, and gratify her vanity by telling her girl friends about it. When girls are very silly they always boast of their conquests,” thought the young man; and it vexed him sorely that so fair a face should go with a shallow mind—vexed him, too, that her beauty should haunt him so, not dreaming yet that its spell was immortal.

He thought that he must go away, and presently forgetfulness would come. He ought to go away, anyhow, for Royall Sherwood did not seem as friendly as of old—had grown careless and neglectful; and, as for Mrs. Fleming, she was too kind, that was all; and he was afraid that she might assume the supposed prerogative of the new woman, to woo and win.

In a very gray mood, he excused himself from her company one day, saying that he had an engagement to ride with a fellow.

The fellow was himself; but he deemed any subterfuge permissible, since she had made him read poetry to her till he was hoarse as a raven, and he was wild to escape.

So he went to the livery stable, secured a light buggy, and set off for a solitary ride along the beach.

“The only chance a fellow can get to think, with so many women about, always chattering like magpies!” he muttered to himself, as he was returning at a slow pace along the level sands, and watching the setting sun as it spread long lances of rosy light across the restless waves.

He had quite decided that he would leave Sea View to-morrow, and return to New York.

There would be no trouble in getting away from Royall Sherwood, who seemed already weary of him, and if the little widow got hysterical he could say he had important letters calling him away.

If he had not been so absorbed in half-sad thoughts, and secondarily interested in the sunset on the sea, he would not have forgotten what a timid animal he was driving, and that it was unsafe to leave the reins lying so slack on his back.

The beach was deserted, he thought, although only this morning it had been alive with gay bathers and fearless bicyclists. So, unthinking of danger, he drove on, and the voice of the sea, so solemn and profound, blending with his pensive thoughts, drowned the voices of two fair young girls wheeling toward him on their bicycles, one dark and sparkling, the other very fair and lovely.

Suddenly the spirited pony, looking ahead, saw the shining wheels spinning toward him, and took unexpected fright, and swerved from his course. Whinnying with fear, and plunging forward before Dallas could restrain him, he dashed upon the very object of his fright, his forward hoofs striking the wheel and overthrowing the fair rider before she could turn out of his way, just as Dallas reined him in with a grasp like steel.

Oh, horrors! There lay the poor girl on the sands, beneath her wheel, still as death! And as Dallas sprang from the buggy the other girl jumped from her wheel in grief and reproach.

“Alas, alas! You have killed sweet Daisie Bell!”

He answered with a cry of anguish, for there at their feet lay the lovely girl, her sweet eyes closed, her golden curls trailing on the sands, while a thin stream of blood trickled down her cheek from a little cut on her temple.

Dallas and Miss Janowitz—for it was the beautiful brunette again—bent over the prostrate girl, and they saw that she was quite unconscious, stunned, perhaps, by the blow on her temple, received either from the horse’s hoof or a shell on the sands.

“It was an accident—I would give my life if it had not happened!” he cried wildly, and she saw that his face grew pale as Daisie’s while he felt for her heart, adding: “She cannot be dead, only stunned a little, I think. Oh, if she could but have turned aside as quickly as you did!”

Annette wrung her little hands, and her dark eyes filled with tears as she cried:

“Poor Daisie! She was just learning to ride, and was not skillful enough to get out of the way. Oh, what shall we do now, Mr. Bain?”

“Why, I will take her home in my buggy, and you had better remount your wheel and go for the doctor as fast as you can.”

Annette called a curious urchin loitering near to ride Daisie’s wheel back to town, and the sad procession started on its return, Annette soon leaving the buggy far in the rear in her haste to obtain a physician for her friend.

It was several miles back to the cottage, and Dallas Bain would never forget that ride, nor the love and grief that thrilled his heart as beautiful Daisie rested against it like a dead girl, with the dark fringe of her lashes prone upon her pallid cheeks. All his thoughts were prayers that she might soon revive, and a little before he turned into Temple Street he saw her breast heave slightly and her eyelids quiver. The next moment they unclosed, while a moan of pain came from her colorless lips.

He could not help pressing her a little tighter in his arms for very joy, as he murmured tenderly:

“Do not be frightened, little Daisie. I am Dallas Bain, you know, and I am taking you home because you fainted.”

“Yes, I remember now. I fell from my wheel—your horse knocked me down!” She shuddered; and then, looking up into his face, Dallas saw her blush as she felt herself in his arms. “I—oh, I can sit up!” she murmured; but the effort made her moan with pain, and he said, with gentle authority:

“Lie still, child, for you are hurt, you know, and must not move.”

CHAPTER III.
THE SPELL OF LOVE.

Daisie was certainly suffering severely, but it was balm for her pain to see the eyes of Dallas Bain rest on her with such tenderness, and though she was thrillingly conscious that his arms held her more tightly than was necessary, even in her weakness, she did not rebel; the sensation gave her a happiness that she had never known before.

Directly they reached the house and found that Annette had the doctor waiting, they carried her tenderly in, and Dallas waited on the porch with an anxious heart for the verdict.

“The accident was all my fault, and every pang of her suffering wrings my heart!” he groaned to himself.

Soon the warm-hearted little Annette put an end to his suspense by running downstairs to tell him that Daisie had no serious injuries. The cut on her brow was superficial; she had some bruises and a sprained ankle, that was all. She would have to keep quiet on a sofa for a few days, then she would be all right again.

What a light of joy flashed into those dark eyes of Dallas Bain at the joyful tidings, as he cried:

“Ah, how happy you make me, for if she had been seriously hurt I never could have forgiven myself for the carelessness that made such an accident possible. Will you tell her for me that I will call to-morrow morning to ask her forgiveness?”

Annette promised freely—she was such a romantic little thing—and she was sure that he had fallen in love with her lovely friend. As she was already engaged herself to the dearest fellow in Cincinnati, she did not experience any pangs of jealousy.

So when the doctor was gone and Daisie resting easily, she whispered his message, and added:

“You have made quite a conquest, I am sure, by this accident, for if ever I saw love in a man’s eyes for a girl, it shone in Dallas Bain’s for you!”

Daisie blushed and demurred, but her heart was full of joy. She forgot all about Royall Sherwood, who had gone to New York last evening to be absent two days. She could think of nothing but the message and the visit she was to receive next morning. If she spent a restless night, it was not so much from her injuries as from happy suspense.

She had longed so eagerly to know him, and when she had given up hope at last this blessing had come to her so suddenly that it made her forget everything else that she ought to remember.

The next morning she pretended to be feeling much better than she really was, so that the doctor would permit her to be helped down to the parlor to lie on the little blue sofa. When he gave his consent, she insisted on wearing her very daintiest white morning gown, with fluffy lace trimmings, though her aunt said she didn’t see that it mattered how she dressed, seeing that Mr. Sherwood was away.

Daisie answered, with a burning blush:

“It is Mr. Sherwood’s friend that is coming to call on me; so, of course, I want to look nice.”

This satisfied the old lady, and when Dallas Bain came at the earliest permissible hour she simply ushered him into the parlor and left him alone with Daisie, excusing herself on the plea of domestic duties.

They were alone together—the pair of unacknowledged lovers—in the simple, dainty room, with its blue-and-white hangings that harmonized so exquisitely with the girl’s radiant fairness. The summer breeze swayed the lace curtains at the window and diffused the odor of white roses growing on a bush outside, disposing the mind to thoughts of love and purity.

Daisie, in her soft white robe, with her bandaged foot on a cushion, and the loose curls of her shining hair veiling her form in sunshine, reclined on a sofa, looking very unlike an invalid, so bright were her eyes and so rosy her face from the warm blood that coursed through her throbbing heart.

Dallas bent down and took her soft white hand in a gentle pressure, murmuring audaciously:

“I ought to be repenting in dust and ashes the accident that caused you such pain, I know; but—how can I regret the accident that gave me the delight of knowing you, Miss Bell?”

He had quite forgotten that he had decided two weeks ago that it was not worth his while trying to know her, forgotten that Royall Sherwood had told him she was silly.

The incidents of yesterday had drawn them nearer together than months of formal acquaintance could have done.

He had held that sweet form in his arms, close to his heart, during a long ride, had feasted his eyes, unreproved, on her beauty, had even dared press reverent lips on her golden hair and one limp white hand.

It seemed to him, in the delirium of love that had come upon him, that all this made her his own, sealed her as his, to have and to hold forever.

He drew a chair close to her sofa, and they began to talk to each other—incoherently, I am afraid, for how could they preserve the formal dignity of strangers?—and very soon he saw that her mind was as lovely as her face, her words well chosen, her voice low and musical, her smile like sunshine, and her laughter a chime of silver bells.

If he had been keeping back a remnant of his heart, he surrendered now at discretion to this adorable creature.

Within half an hour he was saying gently:

“Do you know that I seem to have known you a long while, although we never spoke to each other till yesterday? Yet it is, after all, only two weeks since I first saw you. Since that day you have never been out of my thoughts.”

His beautiful dark eyes seemed to hold her violet ones in a fascinated gaze. She could not remove them, though she felt the rosy blushes bathing cheek and brow. Their glances mingled caressingly, and, taking her unresisting hand in his, he continued, in low, thrilling accents:

“Forgive me if I seem rash and forward, taking advantage of your gentleness; but, Daisie Bell, I love you with the passion of my life, though it may be madness to avow it, though it may meet your scorn. But the softness of your gaze inspires me with some little hope that you are not indifferent to my love, that I may win you—by long devotion—to be my bride.”

How pale her cheek grew—pale as yesterday, when she lay unconscious on his breast after that perilous accident! What a startled look came into her violet eyes!

CHAPTER IV.
FALSE.

Dallas Bain was startled by the young girl’s emotion, and his own cheek paled with sorrow as he cried hoarsely:

“You are angry with me for my presumption? I was too hasty, but my love must be my excuse. Will you forgive me?”

Daisie put out the little hand he had dropped in his alarm, and as he clasped it again he felt the soft pressure of fingers twining about his own as she whispered, in a choked voice:

“You startled me, but—but—I am not angry. For how could I be, when—when——”

She stopped, tears rushing to her eyes.

What could she mean? he thought. Did she—did she care also, as he had dared to hope?

Trembling with hope, the color rushing to his brow, he bent over the agitated girl, and read hope in the trembling smile of the coral lips.

“Oh, Daisie, will you love me?” he cried impetuously, and she answered, with a broken sob:

“Oh, how could I help it, dear?”

And then he dared to kiss her, and for the space of five minutes heaven seemed to come down to earth in that rare bliss of mutual love.

Absorbed in sweet assurances of tenderness, they did not hear the crunching of carriage wheels that stopped at the gate, nor the rustle of a silken robe as a fine little lady came up the steps. But Aunt Alice saw the sight from an upper window, and hurried down to admit the pretty, airy little visitor.

“Mrs. Bell, I presume?” she twittered. “Well, I am Mrs. Fleming, cousin of Royall Sherwood, you know. I came to call on Miss Daisie, having heard she had been injured in an accident.”

And scarcely had Dallas pushed back his chair from its close proximity to the sofa when she was in the room, aflutter with laces and ribbons and flaxen crinkles.

“Why, Mr. Bain, this is a surprise! I—I did not know you were acquainted with Miss Bell,” she broke out, in dismay and alarm.

Dallas was a trifle disconcerted, but he rallied himself and answered lightly:

“I was not until yesterday, when my horse knocked her off her wheel and nearly caused a fatal accident. So I came this morning to beg her forgiveness.”

Mrs. Fleming gave a grating laugh, and answered maliciously:

“Perhaps Daisie may forgive you if she is very kind-hearted, but I am sure my Cousin Royall never will.”

“Royall!” he exclaimed, in bewilderment; but she fluttered over Daisie’s sofa, cooing in her most gushing way:

“My dear girl, may I kiss you? Royall told yesterday of his engagement to you, and that he was going all the way to New York to get a splendid diamond ring for you. We shall be cousins, you and I—and, I hope, great friends. Why—why, what is the matter? The girl is fainting!”

Dallas had heard every word in surprise and horror, and suddenly he clutched the young widow’s arm in a steely grasp.

“What nonsense are you talking to Daisie?” he exclaimed. “She is nothing to Royall! She has promised to marry me!”

“Impossible, Mr. Bain, impossible; for only the night before last she accepted my cousin, and he has gone now to buy the most magnificent engagement ring in New York,” cried the young widow, in defiance and amazement at his claim.

“He has lied to you! She belongs to me!” repeated Dallas hoarsely; and she answered:

“Then she is a wretched little flirt, for she surely gave her promise to Royall. Ask her—see, she is reviving—and she cannot deny it.”

He stooped down to look into the girl’s white face, his own just as pallid and startled, crying, with passionate incredulity:

“Is it true, Daisie Bell? Are you indeed so false and wicked?”

“Dallas! Oh, my love!” she sobbed, in strange affright, covering her face with her lily hands as if in shame.

“Is it true? Are you engaged to him—to us both?” he thundered wrathfully.

“Oh, Dallas, yes; but—but—hear me!” she wailed imploringly; but he threw off her hand as if it were a serpent, and rushed from the house.

CHAPTER V.
A CRUEL COQUETTE.

A cry of the bitterest grief and yearning burst from Daisie’s lips as Dallas angrily shook off her hold and rushed from the house.

“Oh, Dallas, my love, my darling, come back—come back, and I will explain everything!”

She would have followed him, but as she sprang erect a terrible twinge of pain in her sprained ankle made her fall back on the sofa, sobbing with pain; and meanwhile Dallas Bain had rushed from the place in a dazed condition of mind, in which surprise, anger, and wounded love all blended in confusion.

The feelings of the gay little widow, Mrs. Fleming, may better be imagined than described in finding out that the man she adored was madly in love with another.

Grief, rage, and jealousy struggled in her mind, but she gave vent to neither, holding in her emotion firmly while she said, in a cold voice, to the sobbing girl:

“Miss Bell, this is the strangest scene I ever witnessed. I came here this morning to offer my good wishes on your engagement to Royall Sherwood, and find another man making love to you in his absence. Is this fair to my cousin?”

Daisie’s only answer was a heartbroken sob behind the lovely white hands that hid her face, and Mrs. Fleming continued reproachfully:

“I could not have believed that such an innocent face hid the heart of a cruel coquette, playing fast and loose with true men’s hearts.”

“Oh, don’t!” sobbed poor Daisie, flinching as from a blow, and lifting tearful eyes, like violets drowned in rain, to the angry face of her accuser.

“You deserve all I have said, and worse,” retorted the widow vindictively, longing to shake the girl because she had wiled away the heart of Dallas Bain.

With all her money and all her advantages, he had remained cold as ice to her blandishments; but she had seen for herself that he was devoted to Daisie Bell.

And she knew that his acquaintance with her dated only from yesterday, because only last night she had met Annette Janowitz at a dance, and the excitable little thing, not knowing the harm she was doing, had blurted out the story of Daisie’s accident and the apparent devotion of Dallas Bain.

“Oh, isn’t he grand and handsome! Just the match for lovely Daisie Bell! I declare, if I were not already engaged to the dearest and most jealous fellow in the world, I should have been trying to flirt with Dallas Bain!” added Annette, rearranging the bunch of red roses at her belt, and so failing to see the jealous wrath on the little widow’s pink-and-white face.

She was fairly wild with annoyance, but even then she did not comprehend the full extent of the mischief, for Royall Sherwood, on leaving for New York that day, had confided to her that he was engaged to Daisie Bell, but that she had not wished to make the engagement public yet a while, dreading village gossip and curiosity.

“Now, Lutie,” added Royall, “I do think you ought to do the fair thing by Daisie.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, call on her and invite her to Sea View on a visit. Of course, I understand that you’ve been jealous all the while, and wouldn’t have her here on account of Dallas Bain. But now we’re engaged, you needn’t mind.”

But an unerring instinct made Mrs. Fleming persist in her refusal.

“You ask too much, Royall. I won’t have the girl here till I’m sure of Dallas Bain,” she protested, in alarm.

“You’re still determined to marry him, if you can get him, coz?”

“Yes, I am; and I don’t care to bring him and that girl together, even if she is engaged to you. She’s dangerous, I tell you; and he’s in love with her, I’m certain, though they’ve never spoken a single word to each other. No telling what might happen if they got together.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Royall, looking uneasy and remembering that Daisie had betrayed such interest in Dallas that he had been forced into no end of fibs to destroy the romance with which she had invested him. “Perhaps you’re right. Better let well enough alone,” he agreed, and went away to buy the engagement ring.

But chance or fate is above us all and our petty scheming, as she found out that night at the dance, and in consequence she altered her plan of ignoring Daisie Bell.

What Annette had told her about Dallas going the next morning to beg Daisie’s pardon for the accident made her wild; hence her early call at the cottage and her malicious blurting out of the engagement.

When she found out how far matters had progressed between the lovers, she realized that she had scarcely called soon enough, but she was thankful, anyway, that she had driven Dallas away in wrath, and trusted to her woman’s wit to make the breach final.

Daisie’s wet eyes and quivering red mouth did not make her the least sorry for the wretched girl; she only persevered in her denunciations:

“What will Royall say when he hears of this shocking flirtation? He will want to break the engagement.”

“That is what I wish him to do!” returned Daisie courageously.

“Well, I never!” sighed the little widow; and added: “Why did you accept him, then, if you didn’t want him, Miss Bell?”

“I will tell you the truth, may I, Mrs. Fleming?” cried Daisie timidly, dashing the tears from her eyes, and blushing with shame as she continued: “I was persuaded into that promise when my heart wasn’t in it, because—because—first, Aunt Alice was wild with foolish joy because I had caught such a rich beau, and kept begging me over and over to accept him. And then, too, Mr. Sherwood was so much in love with me, and begged me so hard that I would marry him. At first I wouldn’t think of it, for—well, I had fallen in love with Mr. Dallas Bain at first sight, and as long as there was any hope of winning him I wouldn’t have listened to any one else—never! But he—Mr. Sherwood, I mean—must have suspected my preference, for he told me things that I found out to-day weren’t true—for instance, that Mr. Bain was engaged to you; but when I asked him about it to-day he laughed at the very idea!”

Mrs. Fleming winced with rage and pain, but the unconscious girl went on eagerly, pathetically, in her earnest self-exculpation:

“But before I knew how he had deceived me, I thought Mr. Sherwood very nice, indeed—for he is very amusing, really, and very good-looking, too—only, of course, not as handsome as Mr. Bain, who is perfectly grand, and no one else is worth looking at when he is by. But he did not seem to care about me in the least, although I found out that he had sent me an anonymous love poem; and I began to get piqued, and then hopeless, thinking he really did mean to marry you. And Aunt Alice kept coaxing and firing my ambition with your cousin’s riches, and he kept teasing and making himself agreeable—perhaps you know how a sore, aching heart may sometimes take comfort in the devotion of one it does not care for, and find in it some balm for wounded love and pride—so at last I consented, hoping I might learn to love him after, but stipulating that the engagement be kept secret a little while, for I feared that I might change, and, wish to break it, and did not want to make such a sensation public.”

She paused, and fixed her pleading eyes on the other’s face, but it was cold, white, and stony, betraying no sympathy.

Clasping her little hands piteously, Daisie Bell continued nervously:

“So Mr. Sherwood went away with my rash promise, and—and—yesterday I went out on my new wheel with my friend Annette, and, as I was not a very skillful cyclist, that awful accident happened. I might easily have been killed,” shudderingly. “Well, Mr. Bain brought me home in his buggy, and when I revived from my fainting spell he was holding me in his arms, and—oh, I blush to tell you!—but my heart rushed out to him! I realized I loved him wildly, madly, and could never love another. This morning he came—we could not meet formally—and we talked like old acquaintances. I hinted about his marrying you, but he denied it. I began to see that he—cared for me”—blushing vividly—“and I quickly made up my mind to break with Mr. Sherwood because he had deceived me intentionally, so as to leave me free to accept Dallas when he should propose. Oh, please don’t look as though you think me the vainest girl on earth! Indeed, I am not! And so, all at once, before I expected it, Dallas was impetuously asking me to marry him, and I accepted, meaning, of course, to tell him presently all about that other affair, and that I should break with Mr. Sherwood immediately; but in five minutes, before I had confessed to him, you came, and—spoiled—everything!” concluded Daisie, with a sob of despair.

Then she caught her breath, and waited; but Mrs. Fleming said never a word, only looked cold and incredulous.

Daisie rallied her courage, and persevered humbly:

“You see how it was, Mrs. Fleming, don’t you? I was weak, but not wicked. As for flirting, I never thought of it. I execrate it as much as you do, and I am very sorry I ever listened to your cousin. But you must see that he was to blame. Why did he try to prejudice me against the man I loved? He might have guessed I would find it out some time.”

Mrs. Fleming found her voice, and said huskily, trying to remedy Royall’s defeat and her own:

“You misjudge my cousin. He thought I was engaged to Mr. Bain because he knew he loved me, and I was very friendly with him. But when he proposed I refused him, because I couldn’t love a stranger I knew nothing about. It was simply through spite he turned to you, but he is gone now in anger, so my advice to you is to keep your promise to Royall, and let him go.”

“Could you advise me to act so basely? No, I can never marry Mr. Sherwood now. When he comes I want you to tell him all that happened here to-day, and that I set him free.”

“Indeed, I shall tell him nothing of the kind! I would not give him such pain as to tell him the girl he loves is a cruel little coquette. Think better of it, Daisie Bell, and marry Royall, who is so rich, and can give you a palace for a home and diamonds a princess might envy. He is of a sweet, sunny disposition, too, and will make you far happier than Dallas Bain, who is sullen, violent, and jealous. Besides, he is gone away, and you will never see him again, so I will keep your secret of this morning, and Royall need never know it,” coaxed the little widow.

CHAPTER VI.
“I CANNOT GIVE UP MY LOVE.”

But all her pleadings could not move Daisie from her resolve to tell Royall everything and break her engagement. She persisted in it, crying pleadingly: