Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
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.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I. “If Only----” 5
CHAPTER II. “Heiress of Fate” 8
CHAPTER III. A Dastardly Plot 13
CHAPTER IV. Why Did She Do It? 16
CHAPTER V. The Reason Why 23
CHAPTER VI. A Dream of Roses 29
CHAPTER VII. At the Dread Hour of Midnight 34
CHAPTER VIII. “From That Spot by Horror Haunted” 40
CHAPTER IX. “Oh! Those Happy Moments Spent Together!” 44
CHAPTER X. “Sleeping, I Dreamed, Love!” 49
CHAPTER XI. Plighted 52
CHAPTER XII. “When I Am Married!” Cried Floy 55
CHAPTER XIII. In the Meshes of Her Hungry Fate 57
CHAPTER XIV. Thrown on the World 63
CHAPTER XV. “As Proud and as Pretty as a Princess” 66
CHAPTER XVI. A Cruel Persecution 71
CHAPTER XVII. The Fair Dead Face He Had Loved So Well 75
CHAPTER XVIII. “Cupid” 79
CHAPTER XIX. The Beresford Pride 82
CHAPTER XX. Alva’s Disappointment 88
CHAPTER XXI. “Where is She Now?” 92
CHAPTER XXII. “Oh, My Son, My Son!” 95
CHAPTER XXIII. “You Wicked, Wicked Girl!” Cried the
Midnight Visitor 102
CHAPTER XXIV. “A Royal Road to Fortune” 106
CHAPTER XXV. How Those Tender Letters to Another
Must Have Stabbed Maybelle’s Heart! 110
CHAPTER XXVI. “I Will Sell My Life and Honor
Dearly!” Cried the Maddened Girl 116
CHAPTER XXVII. At Bay 119
CHAPTER XXVIII. Another Intruder 122
CHAPTER XXIX. “Oh, How Blest I Am!” Cried Floy 125
CHAPTER XXX. “’Tis Home Where’er the Heart Is” 128
CHAPTER XXXI. Near to Death 134
CHAPTER XXXII. “The Silence of a Broken Heart” 137
CHAPTER XXXIII. Pride Brought Low 140
CHAPTER XXXIV. Too Late! 142
CHAPTER XXXV. “He is Fickle and False--My Lover
Whom I Trusted So Fondly!--How Can
I Bear This Pain and Live?” 146
CHAPTER XXXVI. “Not Till Love Comes” 152
CHAPTER XXXVII. Searching in Vain 155
CHAPTER XXXVIII. A Bower of Roses 158
CHAPTER XXXIX. A Little Hand 161
CHAPTER XL. A Startling Revelation 163
CHAPTER XLI. Joy and Sorrow 166
CHAPTER XLII. A Young Girl’s Pride 170
CHAPTER XLIII. Maybelle Writes a Letter 173
CHAPTER XLIV. But One Chance in a Hundred 180
CHAPTER XLV. “Hope Deferred Maketh the Heart Sick” 184
CHAPTER XLVI. “The House is Haunted” 188
CHAPTER XLVII. “Life Is So Sad!” Cried Floy 192
CHAPTER XLVIII. A Strange Romance 198
CHAPTER XLIX. “Something Terrible!” 203
CHAPTER L. The Last Victim 209
CHAPTER LI. “Just One Kiss!” 212
CHAPTER LII. All That Floy Had Longed for in Other
Days Was Hers Now--Lucky Little Mortal! 217
* * * * *
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.