Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
NEW EAGLE SERIES No. 943
LET US KISS AND PART
By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
[Illustration]
STREET & SMITH
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
Let Us Kiss and Part;
OR,
A SHATTERED TIE
BY
MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER
Author of “Pretty Madcap Lucy,” “The Fatal Kiss,” “Loyal Unto
Death,” “The Strength of Love,” “Lady Gay’s Pride,”
and many other romances of American life published
exclusively in the EAGLE and NEW EAGLE SERIES.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE
* * * * *
Copyright, 1897-1898 By STREET & SMITH
Let Us Kiss and Part
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
* * * * *
Keys to Knowledge
We have a line of the best and cleanest hand books ever published. They
are known as DIAMOND HAND BOOKS. Each one was written by a man or woman
thoroughly conversant with the subject he or she treated. The facts are
presented in an especially attractive manner so that every one who can
read, can understand.
HERE ARE THE TITLES
_PRICE, TEN CENTS EACH_
=Sheldon’s Twentieth Century Letter Writer=, By L. W. SHELDON
=Women’s Secrets; or, How to be Beautiful=, By GRACE SHIRLEY
=Sheldon’s Guide to Etiquette=, By L. W. SHELDON
=Physical Health Culture=, By PROF. FOURMEN
=National Dream Book=, By MME. CLARE ROUGEMONT
=Zingara Fortune Teller=, By a Gypsy Queen
=The Art of Boxing and Self-Defense=, By PROF. DONOVAN
=The Key to Hypnotism=, By ROBERT G. ELLSWORTH, M.D.
=U. S. Army Physical Exercises=, Revised by PROF. DONOVAN
=Heart Talks With the Lovelorn=, By GRACE SHIRLEY
=Frank Merriwell’s Book of Physical Development=, By BURT L. STANDISH
SPECIAL
_PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS_
=How to Keep Fit and Healthy=, By MRS. FRANK STEPHENS
If sent by mail, three cents must be added to the cost of each book to
cover postage.
STREET & SMITH, 79 Seventh Avenue, NEW YORK
* * * * *
_Twenty Books Every Girl Should Read_
Little Nan. By Mary A. Denison. Eagle No. 439, 10c.
Sunset Pass. By General Charles King. Eagle No. 150, 10c.
Dear Elsie. By Mary J. Safford. Eagle No. 337, 10c.
Country Lanes and City Pavements.
By Maurice Minton. Eagle No. 145, 10c.
Couldn’t Say No. By John Habberton. Eagle No. 164, 10c.
Catmur’s Cave. By Richard Dowling. Eagle No. 86, 10c.
Wyoming. By Edward S. Ellis. New Medal No. 532, 15c.
Breakneck Farm. By Evelyn Raymond. Medal No. 367, 10c.
Service Courageous. By Don Cameron Shafer. New Medal No. 707, 15c.
Service Audacious. By Don Cameron Shafer. New Medal No. 717, 15c.
Jack Wheeler, a Western Story.
By Capt. David Southwick. Medal No. 45, 10c.
Frank Merriwell’s Marriage.
By Burt L. Standish. New Medal No. 587, 15c.
The Duchess. By The Duchess. Select No. 71, 10c.
The First Violin. By Jessie Fothergill. Select No. 64, 10c.
Meadowbrook. By Mary J. Holmes. Select No. 48, 10c.
Rory O’More. By Samuel Lover. Select No. 133, 10c.
John Halifax, Gentleman. By Miss Mulock. Select No. 117, 10c.
The King’s Stratagem. By Stanley J. Weyman. Select No. 164, 10c.
East Lynne. By Mrs. Henry Wood. Select No. 14, 10c.
Plain Tales From the Hills. By Rudyard Kipling. Select No. 72, 10c.
Complete List of S. & S. Novels sent anywhere upon request
STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK
* * * * *
LET US KISS AND PART.
CHAPTER I. WHEN POVERTY ENTERS THE DOOR.
To love and hate in the same breath, it is as cruel as a tragedy.
Leon and Verna Dalrymple knew all that subtle pain as they faced each
other in the cold, gray light of that autumn day whereon they were
parting forever.
It was not simply a lovers’ quarrel, either.
The pity of it was that they were husband and wife, both very young,
both very fond, but driven apart by unreasoning pride and passion.
The husband was twenty-one years old, the bride but seventeen--a case
of “marry in haste, repent at leisure.”
Six months ago the bride, sole daughter of a wealthy family, had eloped
from boarding school with a poor young man, a teacher of music.
For her fault the daughter had been cast off by her parents, and the
young man dismissed from the school where he taught. Unable to secure
another position, misfortune had steadily tracked his footsteps until
he could scarcely afford bread for himself and the fair, dainty bride.
Having rushed into marriage without thought for the future, misfortune
soured their naturally hasty tempers, and when the fierce wolf of
poverty came in at the door love flew out of the window.
They could scarcely have told how it all began, but at last they
were quarreling most bitterly. There were mutual recriminations and
fault-findings, that increased in virulence until one day, goaded by
Verna’s reproaches, Leon cried out in hot resentment:
“I regret that I ever saw you!”
“I hate you!” she replied, with a scornful flash of her great,
somber, dark eyes, and whether the words were true or not, she never
took them back--neither one ever professed sorrow for angry words or
begged forgiveness. The husband, hurt by her sneers, pained by her
reproaches, and inwardly wounded by his inability to provide for her
better, took refuge in sullen silence that she resented by downright
sulking. She was furious at his unkindness, disgusted with her poverty,
and unconsciously ill of a trouble she did not suspect, so the breach
widened between their hearts until one day she said with rigid white
lips and somber, angry eyes:
“I am tired of starving and freezing here where I am not wanted! I
shall go home and beg papa to forgive my folly and get me a divorce
from you.”
The awful words were spoken and they fell on his heart like hailstones,
but though he grew pale as death and his whole frame trembled, he
feigned the cruelest indifference, saying bitterly:
“You could not please me better!”
So the die was cast.
Perhaps she had wished to test his love, perhaps she hoped that the
fear of losing her might beat down the armor of his stubborn pride and
make him sue for a reconciliation.
Whatever she might have secretly desired, his answer was a deathblow to
her hopes.
At his words a strange look flashed into her large, dark eyes, and for
a moment her red mouth quivered like a child’s at an unexpected blow.
But she swallowed a choking sob, and the next moment her young face
grew rigid as a mask.
Rising slowly from her seat, she put on her hat, caught up a small hand
satchel from the floor, and passed silently from the poor apartment.
If only she had turned her fair, haughty head for one backward
glance--if only----
For his passionate heart had almost leaped from his breast in the
terror of his loss.
Anger, pride, and pique were forgotten alike in the supreme anguish of
that moment’s despair.
As she turned away he stretched his arms out yearningly, whispering
with stiff, white lips that could scarcely frame the words:
“Darling, come back!”
Had she only looked back, her heart would have melted with tenderness
at sight of his grief. She would have fallen, sobbing, on his breast.
But she never turned her proud, dark head; she did not catch the
yearning whisper, and his arms dropped heavily to his sides again,
while the echo of her retreating footsteps fell like a death knell on
his heart.
Angry and estranged, they had parted to go their separate ways forever,
and the stream of destiny rolled in widely between their sundered
lives, thus wrenched violently heart from heart.
To be born to the heritage of such beauty, pride, and passion, is not
altogether goodly--yet, it is the daughter of this strangely parted
pair whom I have chosen for my heroine, for in four months after
Verna Dalrymple left her husband she became the mother of a lovely
daughter--a girl that in its dainty beauty possessed the blond fairness
of the father, the dark, dreamy eyes and proud, beautiful mouth of the
brunet mother.