Floy went home that evening from the store with a blithe heart.
The meeting with St. George Beresford’s mother had been a delight to
the innocent girl.
The great lady’s graciousness had thrilled her with hope.
She remembered how anxiously her lover had admitted that he must
conciliate his little world before his marriage.
It seemed to her simple mind that Mrs. Beresford had been won over
already.
“She told me I was pretty--that she was looking at me as if I had
been a picture; she can not be angry with her son for loving me,” she
murmured, sagely, and she decided that if he should write her a letter
from abroad she would answer it at once, telling him all that had
happened since their parting and of her pleasant _rencontre_ with his
charming mother.
Dimpling with happy smiles, the fragment of a love-song on her rosy
lips, Floy climbed the uncarpeted stairs to her own poor little den,
away up under the eaves in the fourth story, where a minute later she
was followed by her landlady, pudgy Mrs. Horton.
The woman carried in her hand a beautiful bunch of roses and a letter.
“These came for you awhile ago, Miss Fane,” she said, blandly.
“From whom?” exclaimed Floy, in surprise.
“Some of your beaus, I suppose. Better read the letter and see,” the
woman returned good-naturedly.
Floy tore it open with nervous fingers, and read these words written in
an elegant masculine hand:
“DEAR LITTLE FLOY--I can not rest under the ban of your anger.
“We used to be such good friends before that night at Suicide Place
that I think you might forgive my folly when I was so drunk I did not
realize what I was doing--nothing worse, after all, than trying to
steal a kiss from the sweetest lips in the world. Many a pretty girl
has forgiven a little fault like that in an adoring lover.
“Ah, will you not forgive me and be friends again?
“I am coming to call on you this evening to take you to the
Garden Theater if you will accompany me. The play is ‘Trilby’--of
course you’ve read that wonderful ‘Trilby’ that has made such a
sensation--and I think you will enjoy it. Do not refuse, I beg of you.
“Be ready when I call--I send you some roses for you to wear--and I
promise you a charming time.
“O. M.
“Union League Club, New York,
May 21st, 1895.”
Floy stood motionless and pale to the lips, gazing at the letter as if
it had been a Gorgon’s head and had turned her to stone.
“Oh, Miss Fane, I hope it’s not bad news!” cried the landlady.
Floy roused herself from her trance of indignation, and answered,
angrily:
“Mrs. Horton, if a gentleman calls for me this evening you will kindly
tell him I am not at home. As for these flowers, you may have them or
throw them out of the window.”
“Thank you kindly, miss,” replied the woman, taking them down to
ornament her stuffy little parlor.
And there Otho Maury found them when he made his call. He crushed an
oath under his black mustache as he asked, eagerly:
“Is Miss Fane at home?”
“Lor’, Mr. Maury, are you the one that sent her the flowers?”
“Yes,” he replied, coldly.
“Oh, sir, I’m sorry to tell you, but she burned your letter and gave
me the roses, and told me to say she was not at home!” blurted out
Mrs. Horton, in her amasement at Floy’s antagonism to this charming
exquisite.
Otho repressed his rage, and said, gratingly:
“That’s strange. Wonder how I have offended the young woman?
She used to be awfully fond of me at Mount Vernon. There’s some
misunderstanding, and if I could see her one moment I know I could set
it straight with the pretty little vixen. Mightn’t I just go up and
knock at her door?”
“I don’t see as there’d be any _great_ harm, sir. It’s the fourth
flight, No. 19.”
Floy had forgotten to lock her door after Mrs. Horton went, she was so
angrily intent on setting a match to Otho’s letter.
“How dare he persecute me so?” she cried, with flashing eyes as she
watched it shrivel to ashes.
The tea-bell rang, but she did not heed it. She was too excited to be
conscious of hunger.
She lighted her lamp, bathed her hot face, brushed out her tangled
curls, then raised the window and looked down into the street at the
motley crowds beneath the glaring lights.
She was startled from a long reverie by the soft opening and closing of
her door.
Turning about with a cry of alarm, Floy saw Otho Maury standing with
his back against the door, an insolent smile of triumph on his lips.
“Floy, let me speak to you one moment,” he pleaded humbly.
“No, I will not listen. How dare you come up here? Leave the room this
instant, you villain!” she cried out in stormy anger.
“By Heaven, I will not go, you pretty little vixen, till you hear me.
Oh, Floy, I love you; I offer you my heart and protection! Will you
accept them? No! Then I swear I’ll have the kiss you denied me that
other night!”
Maddened with passion for the scornful young beauty, he advanced toward
her, and in her terrible fright at the thought of his loathed caress,
she leaned her slight body far over the sill, and sent her voice
ringing down to the street in agonized shrieks:
“Help! help! help!”
“Oh, horror! horror!”
It was Otho who cried out then, for the girl suddenly lost her balance
and plunged headlong through the window, going down, down, down,
through the dizzy distance to a terrible death!