CHAPTER II. “A PENNILESS ADVENTURESS.”
CHAPTER III. THE ROSE-COLORED ROOM.
CHAPTER IV. “THE MYSTERY.”
CHAPTER V. A LUCKY CAST.
CHAPTER VI. A DREAM OF SAFETY.
CHAPTER VII. THREEFOLD DANGER.
CHAPTER VIII. THE LUCK OF MARCUS WRAY.
CHAPTER IX. “I WILL POSSESS HIM OR DIE.”
CHAPTER X. A KISS.
CHAPTER XI. A NET FOR HER FEET.
CHAPTER XII. “IF I ASK YOU?”
CHAPTER XIII. HER HOUR OF TRIUMPH.
CHAPTER XIV. MORE TREACHERY.
CHAPTER XV. COILED TO SPRING.
CHAPTER XVI. CIRCE’S EYES.
CHAPTER XVII. THE SPINET.
CHAPTER XVIII. “AT MIDNIGHT.”
CHAPTER XIX. AT THE GATE OF HEAVEN.
CHAPTER XX. THE EDGE OF DOOM.
CHAPTER XXI. THE DOG IN THE MANGER.
CHAPTER XXII. “A CHARMING MAN.”
CHAPTER XXIII. A GHOSTLY EAVESDROPPER.
CHAPTER XXIV. “I NEVER SAW IT BEFORE.”
CHAPTER XXV. THE GRATITUDE OF CRISTIANE.
CHAPTER XXVI. “HER MOTHER’S CHILD!”
CHAPTER XXVII. TRUTH THAT LIED!
CHAPTER XXVIII. “MY NAME IS YESTERDAY.”
CHAPTER XXIX. A NIGHT’S WORK.
CHAPTER XXX. INTO THE LION’S MOUTH.
CHAPTER XXXI. “SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!”
CHAPTER XXXII. “THE DEED IN THE DARK.”
CHAPTER XXXIII. “HEAVENLY TRUE.”
CHAPTER XXXIV. “AND WHO IS THIS?”
CHAPTER XXXV. THE DIAMONDS.
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553--Queen Kate By Charles Garvice
552--At the Court of the Maharaja By Louis Tracy
551--Pity--not Love By Laura Jean Libbey
550--Saved From Herself By Adelaide Stirling
549--Tempted By Love By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
To be issued during November.
548--’Twas Love’s Fault By Charles Garvice
547--A Plunge Into the Unknown By Richard Marsh
546--The Career of Mrs. Osborne By Helen Milecete
545--Well Worth Winning By St. George Rathborne
To be issued during October.
544--In Love’s Name By Emma Garrison Jones
543--The Veiled Bride By Laura Jean Libbey
542--Once in a Life By Charles Garvice
541--Her Evil Genius By Adelaide Stirling
540--A Daughter of Darkness By T. W. Hanshew
To be issued during September.
539--A Heart’s Triumph By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
538--The Fighting Chance By Gertrude Lynch
537--A Life’s Mistake By Charles Garvice
536--Companions in Arms By St. George Rathborne
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535--The Trifler By Archibald Eyre
534--Lotta, The Cloak Model By Laura Jean Libbey
533--A Forgotten Love By Adelaide Stirling
532--True To His Bride By Emma Garrison Jones
To be issued during July.
531--Better Than Life By Charles Garvice
530--The Wiles of a Siren By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
529--Hearts Aflame By Louise Winter
528--Adela’s Ordeal By Florence Warden
527--For Love and Glory By St. George Rathborne
* * * * *
526--Love and Hate By Morley Roberts
525--Sweet Kitty Clover By Laura Jean Libbey
524--A Sacrifice of Pride By Mrs. Louisa Parr
523--A Banker of Bankersville By Maurice Thompson
522--A Spurned Proposal By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
521--The Witch from India By St. George Rathborne
520--The Heatherford Fortune By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Sequel to “The Magic Cameo.”
519--The Magic Cameo By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
518--The Secret of a Letter By Gertrude Warden
517--They Looked and Loved By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
516--Florabel’s Lover By Laura Jean Libbey
515--Tiny Luttrell By E. W. Hornung
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514--The Temptation of Mary Barr By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
513--A Sensational Case By Florence Warden
512--A Heritage of Love By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Sequel to “The Golden Key.”
511--The Golden Key By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
510--Doctor Jack’s Paradise Mine By St. George Rathborne
509--A Penniless Princess By Emma Garrison Jones
508--The King of Honey Island By Maurice Thompson
507--A Mad Betrothal By Laura Jean Libbey
506--A Secret Foe By Gertrude Warden
505--Selina’s Love-story By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
504--Evelyn, the Actress By Wenona Gilman
503--A Lady in Black By Florence Warden
502--Fair Maid Marian By Mrs. Emma Garrison Jones
501--Her Husband’s Secret By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
500--Love and Spite By Adelaide Stirling
499--My Lady Cinderella By Mrs. C. N. Williamson
498--Andrew Leicester’s Love By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
497--A Chase for Love By Seward W. Hopkins
496--The Missing Heiress By C. H. Montague
495--An Excellent Story By May Agnes Fleming
494--Voyagers of Fortune By St. George Rathborne
493--The Girl He Loved By Adelaide Stirling
492--A Speedy Wooing By the Author of “As Common Mortals”
491--My Lady of Dreadwood By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
490--The Price of Jealousy By Maud Howe
489--Lucy Harding By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes
488--The French Witch By Gertrude Warden
487--A Wonderful Woman By May Agnes Fleming
486--Divided Lives By Edgar Fawcett
485--The End Crowns All By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
484--The Whistle of Fate By Richard Marsh
483--Miss Marston’s Heart By L. H. Bickford
482--A Little Worldling By L. C. Ellsworth
481--Wedded, Yet No Wife By May Agnes Fleming
480--A Perfect Fool By Florence Warden
479--Mysterious Mr. Sabin By E. Phillips Oppenheim
478--For Love of Sigrid By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
477--The Siberian Exiles By Col. Thomas Knox
476--Earle Wayne’s Nobility By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
475--Love Before Pride By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
474--The Belle of the Season By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
473--A Sacrifice To Love By Adelaide Stirling
472--Dr. Jack and Company By St. George Rathborne
471--A Shadowed Happiness By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
470--A Strange Wedding By Mary Hartwell Catherwood
469--A Soldier and a Gentleman By J. M. Cobban
468--The Wooing of a Fairy By Gertrude Warden
467--Zina’s Awaking By Mrs. J. K. Spender
466--Love, the Victor By a Popular Southern Author
465--Outside Her Eden By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
464--The Old Life’s Shadows By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
463--A Wife’s Triumph By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
462--A Stormy Wedding By Mary E. Bryan
461--Above All Things By Adelaide Stirling
460--Dr. Jack’s Talisman By St. George Rathborne
459--A Golden Mask By Charlotte M. Stanley
458--When Love Meets Love By Charles Garvice
457--Adrift in the World By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
456--A Vixen’s Treachery By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
455--Love’s Greatest Gift By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
454--Love’s Probation By Elizabeth Olmis
453--A Poor Girl’s Passion By Gertrude Warden
452--The Last of the Van Slacks By Edward S. Van Zile
451--Helen’s Triumph By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
450--Rosamond’s Love By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
449--The Bailiff’s Scheme By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
448--When Love Dawns By Adelaide Stirling
447--A Favorite of Fortune By St. George Rathborne
446--Bound with Love’s Fetters By Mary Grace Halpine
445--An Angel of Evil By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
444--Love’s Trials By Alfred R. Calhoun
443--In Spite of Proof By Gertrude Warden
442--Love Before Duty By Mrs. L. T. Meade
441--A Princess of the Stage By Nataly von Eschstruth
440--Edna’s Secret Marriage By Charles Garvice
439--Little Nan By Mary A. Denison
438--So Like a Man By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
437--The Breach of Custom By Mrs. D. M. Lowrey
436--The Rival Toreadors By St. George Rathborne
435--Under Oath By Jean Kate Ludlum
434--The Guardian’s Trust By Mary A. Denison
433--Winifred’s Sacrifice By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
432--Breta’s Double By Helen V. Greyson
431--Her Husband and Her Love By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
430--The Honor of a Heart By Mary J. Safford
429--A Fair Fraud By Emily Lovett Cameron
428--A Tramp’s Daughter By Hazel Wood
427--A Wizard of the Moors By St. George Rathborne
426--The Bride of the Tomb and Queenie’s Terrible Secret
By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
425--A College Widow By Frank H. Howe
SAVED FROM HERSELF;
OR,
ON THE EDGE OF DOOM
BY
ADELAIDE STIRLING
AUTHOR OF
“A Forgotten Love,” “Nerine’s Second Choice,” “A Sacrifice to Love,”
“Her Evil Genius,” “Above All Things,” “The Girl He Loved,”
“Love and Spite,” “When Love Dawns.” All published
exclusively in the EAGLE SERIES.
[Illustration: S AND S NOVELS, STREET & SMITH, NEW YORK]
NEW YORK
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1898 and 1899
By STREET & SMITH
Saved from Herself
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
SAVED FROM HERSELF
CHAPTER I.
THE THEATER.
“I don’t see,” said Mrs. Trelane discontentedly, “why the woman could
not have kept you.”
She spoke to her own reflection in the glass with an angry frown. What
was the good of an exquisite toilet, of a face that did not look within
ten years of its age, when seated on the sofa opposite was a grown-up
daughter whose presence in the house might spoil all her own well-laid
plans?
Just a week ago her only child, aged seventeen, had been returned from
her cheap boarding-school with a scathing note from the principal
regarding her unpaid bills. It was unbearable, even though she had
forbidden the girl to be about the house or meet any of her visitors.
To-night, when the table was laid for a party of two, the presence of a
third was--impossible!
“Ismay,” Mrs. Trelane turned sharply to the tall, slim figure coiled on
the sofa, “couldn’t you take a maid and go out somewhere to-night? Oh,
no--I can’t spare you! Well, mind you don’t let Abbotsford see you--he
doesn’t know you are, you know!”
The girl looked with somber impatience at her mother in her satin gown,
so great a contrast to her own shabby black serge.
“All right,” she said quietly, “but if he keeps coming here every day
he is bound to find out my existence.”
“It won’t matter--by and by.” Mrs. Trelane gave a little conscious
laugh and poured some peach-blossom scent on her handkerchief. Ismay,
as the delicate odor reached her, moved her head as if it sickened her.
Three years away from a mother who had never loved her had deadened
the memory of the regret, the loneliness, that had been her portion
always. But to-night she saw very clearly that she was, as always, a
stone in the road of Mrs. Trelane’s life.
She got up, with a leisurely grace, and looked about her as the
door-bell rang and Mrs. Trelane swished softly out of the room. She
was used to being unpopular; at school no one had liked her, but yet
indifference from her mother cut her.
And it was dull, deadly dull! There was nothing to read, nowhere to sit
but this disordered bedroom that smelled to nausea of almonds.
A neat maid with a cross face came in at that moment and bumped down
an uninviting tray of tea and bread and butter on a table, with
an impertinence that was somehow galling. Ismay Trelane looked at
it, and a sudden light sprang into her strangely lovely face, that
was sometimes so much older than her years, as a smile came to her
delicate, thin lips.
“There isn’t any room for me in mama’s life,” she thought quietly,
“it’s all taken up with Lord Abbotsford! She can’t surely think he
means to marry her, yet she never kept up the mask like this for any of
her other admirers.”
Looking back with ungirlish wisdom into the past before she had been
shoved into Mrs. Barlow’s school, she added:
“Well, it doesn’t matter! I’m not a child any more; I can amuse myself.”
She felt in the pocket of her old black frock, that was too short, for
all the money she owned--ten shillings her mother had given her in a
moment of generosity.
“She said to keep out of the way,” she reflected, “and I will. But I
won’t sit here all the evening, and I won’t”--pride getting the better
of hunger--“drink any of that horrid tea.”
She slipped on her sailor-hat and jacket, a garment that had been
barely decent all summer, but was threadbare now, and with noiseless
haste made her way down-stairs and out into the street.
The fresh, cool air did her good, and she walked quickly out of the
quiet Brompton Square into the bustling thoroughfare of the Brompton
Road.
London at night was strange to her, and she was not even sure what she
wanted to do.
“I’m out, though, and that’s the main thing,” she thought cheerfully.
“I think I’ll go for a drive on an omnibus! Then when I feel like it I
can get off and have something to eat somewhere.”
She felt almost gay as she hailed the first bus that came thundering
by, and climbed to the roof of the unwieldy thing.
How pretty it was! The long street like a shifting ribbon of light,
with its never-ending stream of carriage-lamps; its procession of
hansoms and carriages full of people--men chiefly--in evening dress.
“Where do you go?” she asked the conductor as she paid her fare.
“Piccadilly Circus, miss; Shaftesbury Avenue, past the Palace Theater.”
“Theater!”
Ismay’s heart gave a jump. Why not go to a theater? There was time; it
could not be more than half-past eight. After that she could take a cab
and go home. It was three years since she had been at a theater; but
she knew the Palace was a variety place, where it did not matter what
time you arrived.
The November air was cold on top of the omnibus, but the girl’s blood
was warm, as she watched the surging panorama of the streets. This was
life; the shifting crowd went to her head like wine; her eyes burned
like stars as she looked about her at the never-ending drama of London.
“Palace Theater, miss.” The conductor’s voice startled her. He helped
her down with a curious feeling that she was too young to be out alone.
But he was reassured as he saw her move composedly under the lighted
awning to the flaring entrance, where the lights shone red in the
box-office. She was older than she looked, he decided, as he signaled
the driver to go on.
Ismay, as the swinging doors closed behind her, stood undecided for a
minute. There was a notice facing her:
“Stalls, ten shillings. Dress-circle, seven and sixpence. Upper circle,
five shillings.”
Stalls were out of the question.
“One dress-circle,” she said composedly, making her way to the
ticket-seller’s window through the groups of men idling in the entrance.
Most of them looked at her curiously; her strange beauty and her shabby
black clothes contrasted oddly.
She read their thoughts as she turned with her ticket in her hand, and
her eyes glittered with pride under her long, dark lashes.
Yet, as she followed the usher up the stairs to the dress-circle, she
walked as one in a dream, and stood for a moment in a sort of daze as
she was turned over to the white-capped attendant.
The whole house was in darkness except for the lights upon the stage
and the constant glimmer of matches, for every one seemed to be
smoking, even many of the women in the boxes.
Ismay stumbled to her seat still dazed.
Was this a theater? Had she spend nearly all of her ten shillings for
this?
Two badly painted women danced between the verses of a song, and their
antics seemed to amuse the crowd.
Ismay drew her skirts away from the vicinity of a French hair-dresser
as she thought:
“If that is all they have to do to earn their livings I could make
mine.”
Then she started angrily.
A common, flashily dressed man beside her had spoken to her. His tone
offended her, and she rose and swept past him like an insulted duchess.
She walked up the steps to the third gallery, where men and women
were seated at small tables, eating olives and drinking liquor. As
she emerged into the bright light she stopped and leaned over the
balustrade with her beautiful eyes still glowing.
“Beast!” she said under her breath, “to dare to speak to me!”
A man standing quite near her glanced at her wonderingly, and as she
turned she found his eyes upon her.
“I beg your pardon,” he said civilly, “but I could not help hearing
what you said.”
Ismay Trelane lifted her strange eyes and saw a face that, dreaming or
waking, would haunt her to the end of her life.
Bronzed, gray-eyed, clear-cut--it came near to being the handsomest
face in London. Many a woman had turned to look upon it, and some, like
Ismay, carried the remembrance forever.
Something, she knew not what, made the girl tremble as she answered him.
“A man spoke to me,” she said slowly. “You do not think he will come up
here, do you?”
“I spoke to you, too,” her hearer’s voice was kind but a little puzzled.
“You are different,” she said simply. “Oh,” with a little gasp, “he is
coming up!”
“Stand by me and don’t look at him!” said the stranger authoritatively.
Miss Trelane moved closer to him, as she was told, and the obnoxious
Frenchman, with a curious glance, passed by her.
If she had looked up just then at her new friend she would have seen
that he was divided between wonder and--something else. Music-halls
were an old story to him, but this girl had apparently never been in
one. She looked so out of place, and yet--well, at all events, she was
beautiful! Though the beauty was not that of a young girl. This face
might have smiled on dead men out of Circe’s window, in strange lands
long ago. For the girl’s hair was an ashy flaxen without a hint of
gold; her skin was fine and milky white, and her lips so red as to be
startling in her colorless face. But it was her eyes more than anything
that were full of strange witchery, for they were as clear and dark a
green as the new shoots of a pine-tree in the spring.
“Nonsense!” the man thought, “she is only some little milliner. But she
ought not to be here.”
The girl looked up, as though she read his mind.
“I don’t like it--here. I think I’ll go home,” she said slowly.
“I think I would,” he returned, with a smile. “This is not a good place
to begin with when one has never been out alone before.”
“How did you know I never was?” she asked sharply.
“Oh, I thought so!” was the answer. “But if you do wish to go home you
had better let me take you down-stairs. It’s rather crowded, and--there
may be more Frenchmen!”
“Home!” she looked at him queerly. “Oh, I can’t go home! It’s too--too
lonely.” Her lips quivered desolately at the thought of the long hours
before bedtime in that house where she was not wanted.
As she looked at him the absolute beauty of his face struck her once
more. She had never spoken to a man like this; it had been a very
different sort of men she had been used to seeing in her childhood. How
immaculately dressed he was, and what lovely black pearls he wore as
shirt-studs. “I don’t think I’ll go home at all,” she ended abruptly.
“Not go home?” He stared at her. “My dear child, you’re talking
nonsense. Do you mean that you live alone when you say it is too
lonely?” He felt suddenly sorry for her, and wondered afresh who she
was. Her dress was old and worn, fit for a servant out of place, but
her ungloved hand lying on the red velvet rail was exquisitely white
and smooth.
As he looked at her she laughed, a little delicate laugh that was
somehow far older than her years.
“Yes, of course,” she said, “utter nonsense; for I can live with my
mother.”
She moved away as she spoke; even if the man was as good-looking as all
the gods, she would not stay talking with him after he had suggested
she should go.
“Wait a moment, if you are lonely at home. I am lonely here,” he said,
and he was very tall as he looked down at her with a little laugh.
“You--lonely!” her eyes darkened with surprise. “Why, you can go
anywhere you like in all London, you have not to sit alone evening
after evening till----”
“No, but you see I don’t know anywhere I want to go,” he interrupted.
“And if we’re both here, and both lonely, why--I think we may as well
talk to one another.”
They were moving slowly along the crowded promenade on their way to the
stairs, and the languid grace of the girl’s steps was apparent.
“Are you tired?” he said suddenly. “You look pale.”
“I’m always pale.”
A swift intuition flashed over him.
“I don’t think,” he observed deliberately, “that you have had any
dinner!”
Miss Trelane flushed--exquisitely.
The remembrance of the supper of bread and butter, which pride had made
her forego, was haunting her. She had eaten nothing since tea at five
o’clock.
She raised her head haughtily, as a woman of the world would have
done, and caught a look on her companion’s face that made her suddenly
childlike again.
“I--I didn’t wait,” she stammered.
Her companion stopped at a vacant table, and put her into a chair.
“Now that I think of it, I am hungry myself,” he observed, signaling to
a waiter, and then ordering sandwiches and some liquor.
He sat looking at this waif from some other world as she ate the
sandwiches; the fiery cherry brandy made her less pale, the depths of
her strange eyes less somber. His first theory had been right: she
was very young. But the beautiful face was prophetic of tragedy and
passion; the scarlet lips cynical. She looked at him, raising slow
white lids, till he seemed to see unfathomable depths in her clear
green eyes.
“Do you know you are the first person who has ever been kind to me in
all my life?” she said. “Tell me, why are you kind?”
There was in her voice only calm inquiry, nothing to tell him that this
strange, pale girl was filled with passionate gratitude.
“I’m not kind; it is a pleasure to sit and talk to you. You forget
that.” His manner was to the girl what it would have been to a duchess.
“But it’s getting late, and I’m going to take you home.”
He raised his eyebrows a little as he sat by her in a hansom and heard
her give the man an address in Colbourne Square; it was not exactly a
haunt of poverty, and this girl was nearly out at elbows.
“You live there with your mother?” he said involuntarily.
She laughed with a curious mockery of mirth.
“Yes, but you don’t know who I am, and I won’t tell you.”
“Don’t you want to know who I am?” he asked, somewhat piqued. “My
name----”
“Don’t tell me!” stopping him with a quick coldness. “I don’t want to
know. You have been kind to me--I’ll remember you by that best. No one
else ever was.”
“I wonder,” he said abruptly, “if I will ever see you again.”
“Do you wish to?”
He nodded, and with a sudden flash of her spirit Ismay Trelane
determined to see him again if she had to tramp the world for a sight
of his face.
“You won’t quite forget me, though you won’t let me tell you my name,”
he said more earnestly than he knew, for her strange beauty, her
strange manner, had gone a little to his head.
Ismay turned to him as the hansom stopped at her mother’s door, and
looked once more at his strong, sweet face and broad shoulders.
“No! I will not forget you,” she said, with her delicate smile that was
so much older than her manner. “And when I meet you again--remember,
you must be glad to see me.”
“Shall I knock for you?” he asked, helping her out.
“Knock? Oh, no!” Last night she would have been afraid to go out
secretly and come back openly with an utter stranger, but now there
was a lightness in her dancing blood that made her utterly indifferent
as to what reception she would get from her mother. The light from
the street-lamps fell on her face as she put her hand in his with a
gesture of dismissal, not learned, assuredly, at Mrs. Barlow’s school.
But at the clasp of his strong fingers she thrilled, and knew the world
would end for her before she forgot him.
She drew a long, shivering breath as she watched him drive away.
“I wish,” she thought, with a sudden vain longing, “that I had let him
tell me his name! But I will find him again some day, as sure as he and
I live in this world.”
She little knew how she would find him--nor what terror would make her
almost forget him first--as she calmly rang at her mother’s door-bell.