PRICE 25 CENTS
LAUREL VANE
or, THE GIRL'S CONSPIRACY.
By MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER.
[Illustration: THE SWEETHEART SERIES.
GEORGE
MUNRO'S
SONS,
PUBLISHERS,
17 to 27
VANDEWATER
STREET,
NEW YORK.
Copyright 1896, by George Munro's Sons.
By Subscription, $10.00 per Annum.
]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
CHAPTER XLII.
CHAPTER XLIII.
CHAPTER XLIV.
CHAPTER XLV.
CHAPTER XLVI.
CHAPTER XLVII.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
CHAPTER XLIX.
CHAPTER L.
CHAPTER LI.
CHAPTER LII.
CHAPTER LIII.
CHAPTER LIV.
CHAPTER LV.
CHAPTER LVI.
CHAPTER LVII.
CHAPTER LVIII.
CHAPTER LIX.
CHAPTER LX.
CHAPTER LXI.
CHAPTER LXII.
CHAPTER LXIII.
CHAPTER LXIV.
CHAPTER LXV.
CHAPTER LXVI.
CHAPTER LXVII.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
CHAPTER LXIX.
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Laurel Vane;
or,
THE GIRLS' CONSPIRACY.
By MRS. ALEX McVEIGH MILLER.
[Illustration]
Copyright 1883, by George Munro.
[Illustration]
(SWEETHEART)
NEW YORK:
GEORGE MUNRO'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
17 to 27 Vandewater Street.
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À LA SPIRITE
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LAUREL VANE.
CHAPTER I.
All the clocks of the great, thronged city clanged out the hour of
midnight from their hoarse, brazen throats simultaneously, and as
the last tremulous echo died away on the air, a human soul that had
wasted its glorious talents, and squandered its heritage of genius in
a reckless, dissipated life, was launched out on the great, shoreless
tide of eternity.
And in the same moment of time a young, fair, innocent girl, the dead
man's only child, was cast adrift, friendless and forlorn, upon the
mercies of the cold, hard world.
She fell, like one dead, by the bedside, and the wealth of her
burnished golden hair fell like a pitying veil over the slender form
that had bent like a flower before the relentless blast of fate.
The coarse, but not unkindly, lodging house people bore her into her
own little room, and left her there alone to recover, while they
prepared the dead man for burial to-morrow.
It was but a little while that this blessed unconsciousness lasted,
when Laurel Vane struggled up to her feet to push back with little,
trembling hands the cloud of golden hair from her white brow, and stare
with great, frightened, somber eyes out into the strange, unknown
future.
What terrible temptation, what love and sorrow and bitter despair that
future held in its keeping for her was yet mercifully hidden from her
sight by the thick curtain of mystery that ever hides To-morrow from
our curious eyes.
The daughter of a genius, who had beclouded his gifted brain with the
fumes of strong drink, and who had only written his brilliant articles
under the stress of compulsion, and to keep the wolf from the door,
the girl realized that she was left alone and penniless, with not a
friend to pity or protect her. It came over her suddenly, and with a
great thrill of horror, that her father's last article--finished only
yesterday, before that sudden illness laid its chilly, fatal hand upon
him--must be carried to the publishing house and the money received
therefor before she could bury her dead!
Her dead! She could scarcely realize that her fond, though erring
father, the profound scholar, the erratic genius who had loved his
little girl even while he had unpardonably neglected her, was gone from
her for evermore. With trembling footsteps she glided to the room where
the people, having robed him for the grave, had left him alone in the
solemn majesty of death.
A terrible shudder shook her frame as she beheld that sheeted
_something_ lying in stiff, rigid outline upon the narrow bed. Half
frightened, she drew back the snowy linen and gazed upon the handsome,
marble-white features, to whose pallid grace death had added a solemn
dignity all its own.
Great bursting sobs of regret and sorrow shook the daughter's frame
as she gazed on that loved face, where in life the stamp of genius
had been marred by the traces of dissipation and vulgar pleasures.
Laurel was little more than a child, yet she knew that her father had
recklessly wasted his God-given talents and sated his soul on the dry
husks of life. Yet in all her sorrow and pity, in all her fear of the
untried future, no thought of anger or blame came to her as she kept
her sorrowful vigil by his side. There were others who blamed him that
he had left this tender flower, his "Laurel blossom," as he poetically
called her, alone and penniless in the hard, cold world. But she, his
daughter, had nothing but tears and love for him now when he lay before
her dead.
In a few hours they would carry him away, her beloved, forever out of
her sight, but even those last few hours she could not have to spend
with him. She was too forlorn and poor to give herself these last
moments with him. She must carry his last manuscript to the office
and receive the money before she could pay for his coffin and hearse.
And already the lodging-house keepers were adjuring her to hasten in
burying him. It was so gloomy having a corpse in the house, they said,
unfeelingly.
So, at the earliest office hours, Laurel presented herself at the
editor's desk with the small roll of manuscript clasped tightly in her
little black gloved hand.
The clerk stared almost rudely at the young face from which she put
aside the shielding veil with one timid hand.
"A little beauty, if only she weren't so pale and tear-stained," was
his mental comment.
"I have brought Mr. Vane's article for the magazine. Can I have the
money for it now?" she asked, falteringly.
"Very sorry, but the editor isn't in. You may leave the paper, and
Mr. Vane can call for his money later in the day," replied the clerk,
devouring her sweet face with his bold, admiring eyes.
The red mouth trembled, the wide, somber dark eyes brimmed over with
quick tears.
"He--he cannot come--he is dead!" she answered in uneven tones, "and,"
flushing crimson in a sensitive shame at her own poverty, "I must have
the money to bury him!"
"Ah, dead? Very sorry, I'm sure," said the clerk, a little startled out
of his coolness; "and you are his daughter?"
"Yes, I am Laurel Vane."
"The editor doesn't come down to his office till noon. He always
examines articles and pays for them himself. Very sorry your father is
dead--a fine writer when he chose to take up the pen. Can I do anything
else for you, Miss Vane?" went on the bold-eyed young man, rather
pitying her sorrow and timidity, inasmuch as she was fair to look upon.
"If you will give me the address I will go to Mr. Gordon's private
residence. I must have the money without delay," she answered, faintly.
He scribbled the address on a card for her, and after bowing her out in
his most killing air, he went back to tell the printers that "old Vane
had drunk himself to death at last, and left a devilish pretty little
daughter without a penny."
"With a name as pretty as her face--Laurel Vane!" he added.
"He might have had a prouder laurel for his brow than a penniless
daughter if he had not been so fond of his glass," said the printers,
grimly.
And this was Louis Vane's epitaph.
While Laurel directed her faltering steps to the editor's up-town
residence, all unconscious that the finger of Fate was pointing the way.
Mr. Gordon was one of the most successful editors and publishers of the
day, and his brown-stone house on one of the fashionable avenues of the
great city looked like a palace to Laurel's unaccustomed eyes. She went
slowly up the broad steps and rang the bell a little nervously, feeling
her courage desert her at thought of the interview with the stern
editor. No thought came to her that her first meeting with that august
personage would be in a darker, more fateful hour than this.
The smart serving-man who opened the door stared at our simply clad
heroine a little superciliously. He could not recognize a lady apart
from a fine dress.
"I wish to see Mr. Gordon, please," Laurel said, with quiet dignity.
"Mr. Gordon is out, mem," was the disappointing reply.
"Where is he gone? When will he come back?" exclaimed Laurel, in
piteous disappointment.
"He's gone into the country, and he won't be back until to-night," was
the concise reply.
The day was warm, but the girl shivered as if the ground had been swept
from beneath her feet by the icy blast of winter. An unconscious cry
broke from her quivering lips, and she clasped her little hands tightly
together.
"Oh, what shall I do now?" she moaned, despairingly.
"I'm sure I don't know, mem," said the man impudently, and making an
impatient move to shut the door in her face.
He might have done so with impunity, for Laurel, gazing before her
with dazed, despairing gaze, was for the moment incapable of speech or
action, but at that moment a door opened sharply on the side of the
hall, a swish of silk sounded softly, and a clear, sweet voice inquired:
"Who is that asking for papa, Charles?"
Charles opened the door and fell back obsequiously. A lovely blue-eyed
girl, richly dressed, came toward Laurel.
"I am Mr. Gordon's daughter. Is your business important?" she inquired
with girlish curiosity.
She thought she had never seen anything so sweet and sad as the dark,
wistful eyes Laurel flashed upward to meet her gaze.
"Oh, yes, yes, it is very important," she faltered, incoherently.
"Perhaps you could--that is, if you would--"
Miss Gordon smiled a little at the tripping speech, but not unkindly.
"Come in. I will do what I can," she said, and led Laurel past the
discomfited Charles into a lovely little anteroom, with flowers and
books and pictures, that made it a little feminine paradise.
She pushed a little cushioned blue-satin chair toward Laurel.
"Sit down and tell me what you want of papa," she said, gently; and
Laurel's impulsive heart went out in a great flood of gratitude to this
beautiful stranger who looked and spoke so sweetly.
She grasped the back of the chair tightly with both hands, and turned
her dark, beseeching eyes on Miss Gordon's face.
"I have brought Mr. Vane's manuscript for the magazine," she added.
"He--my papa--is dead," she added, with a rush of bitter tears, "and we
are so poor I must have the money to pay for his funeral."
Instantly Beatrix Gordon drew out her dainty pearl _port-monnaie_.
"You poor child!" she said, compassionately. "What is the price of the
article?"
Laurel named it, and Miss Gordon counted the money out into the little
trembling hand, and received the manuscript.
"I am very sorry Mr. Vane is dead," she said. "He was a very gifted
writer. Has he left you all alone, my poor girl?" with gentle
compassion.
"All alone," Laurel echoed, drearily.
Then suddenly she caught Miss Gordon's hand, and covered it with tears
and kisses.
"You have been so kind and so noble to me, that I will do anything on
earth for you, Miss Gordon," she sobbed out, gratefully.
Then she hurried away to bury her dead, little thinking in what way
Beatrix Gordon would claim her promise.