No. 250 (EAGLE SERIES)
A WOMAN’S SOUL
BY
CHARLES
GARVICE
[Illustration: EAGLE
SERIES
STREET & SMITH PUBLISHERS NEW YORK]
ALL
STORIES
COPYRIGHTED
CANNOT BE HAD
IN ANY OTHER
EDITION
_Copyright Fiction by the Best Authors_
NEW EAGLE SERIES
ISSUED WEEKLY
The books in this line comprise an unrivaled collection of copyrighted
novels by authors who have won fame wherever the English language is
spoken. Foremost among these is Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, whose works
are contained in this line exclusively. Every book in the New Eagle
Series is of generous length, of attractive appearance, and of
undoubted merit. No better literature can be had at any price. Beware
of imitations of the S. & S. novels, which are sold cheap because
their publishers were put to no expense in the matter of purchasing
manuscripts and making plates.
ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT
TO THE PUBLIC:--These books are sold by news dealers everywhere. If
your dealer does not keep them, and will not get them for you, send
direct to the publishers, in which case four cents must be added to
the price per copy to cover postage.
=Quo Vadis= (New Illustrated Edition) =By Henryk Sienkiewicz=
1--Queen Bess By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
2--Ruby’s Reward By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
7--Two Keys By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
12--Edrie’s Legacy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
44--That Dowdy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
55--Thrice Wedded By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
66--Witch Hazel By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
77--Tina By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
88--Virgie’s Inheritance By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
99--Audrey’s Recompense By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
111--Faithful Shirley By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
122--Grazia’s Mistake By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
133--Max By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
144--Dorothy’s Jewels By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
155--Nameless Dell By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
166--The Masked Bridal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
177--A True Aristocrat By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
188--Dorothy Arnold’s Escape By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
199--Geoffrey’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
210--Wild Oats By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
219--Lost, A Pearle By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
222--The Lily of Mordaunt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
233--Nora By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
244--A Hoiden’s Conquest By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
255--The Little Marplot By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
266--The Welfleet Mystery By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
277--Brownie’s Triumph By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
282--The Forsaken Bride By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
288--Sibyl’s Influence By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
291--A Mysterious Wedding Ring By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
299--Little Miss Whirlwind By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
311--Wedded by Fate By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
339--His Heart’s Queen By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
351--The Churchyard Betrothal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
362--Stella Rosevelt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
372--A Girl in a Thousand By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
373--A Thorn Among Roses By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Sequel to “A Girl in a Thousand”
382--Mona By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
391--Marguerite’s Heritage By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
399--Betsey’s Transformation By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
407--Esther, the Fright By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
415--Trixy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
419--The Other Woman By Charles Garvice
433--Winifred’s Sacrifice By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
440--Edna’s Secret Marriage By Charles Garvice
451--Helen’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
458--When Love Meets Love By Charles Garvice
476--Earle Wayne’s Nobility By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
511--The Golden Key By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
512--A Heritage of Love By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Sequel to “The Golden Key”
519--The Magic Cameo By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
520--The Heatherford Fortune By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Sequel to “The Magic Cameo”
531--Better Than Life By Charles Garvice
537--A Life’s Mistake By Charles Garvice
542--Once in a Life By Charles Garvice
548--’Twas Love’s Fault By Charles Garvice
553--Queen Kate By Charles Garvice
554--Step by Step By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
555--Put to the Test By Ida Reade Allen
556--With Love’s Aid By Wenona Gilman
557--In Cupid’s Chains By Charles Garvice
558--A Plunge Into the Unknown By Richard Marsh
559--The Love That Was Cursed By Geraldine Fleming
560--The Thorns of Regret By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
561--The Outcast of the Family By Charles Garvice
562--A Forced Promise By Ida Reade Allen
563--The Old Homestead By Denman Thompson
564--Love’s First Kiss By Emma Garrison Jones
565--Just a Girl By Charles Garvice
566--In Love’s Springtime By Laura Jean Libbey
567--Trixie’s Honor By Geraldine Fleming
568--Hearts and Dollars By Ida Reade Allen
569--By Devious Ways By Charles Garvice
570--Her Heart’s Unbidden Guest By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
571--Two Wild Girls By Mrs. Charlotte May Kingsley
572--Amid Scarlet Roses By Emma Garrison Jones
573--Heart for Heart By Charles Garvice
574--The Fugitive Bride By Mary E. Bryan
575--A Blue Grass Heroine By Ida Reade Allen
576--The Yellow Face By Fred M. White
577--The Story of a Passion By Charles Garvice
579--The Curse of Beauty By Geraldine Fleming
580--The Great Awakening By E. Phillips Oppenheim
581--A Modern Juliet By Charles Garvice
582--Virgie Talcott’s Mission By Lucy M. Russell
583--His Greatest Sacrifice; or, Manch By Mary E. Bryan
584--Mabel’s Fate By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
585--The Ape and the Diamond By Richard Marsh
586--Nell, of Shorne Mills By Charles Garvice
587--Katherine’s Two Suitors By Geraldine Fleming
588--The Crime of Love By Barbara Howard
589--His Father’s Crime By E. Phillips Oppenheim
590--What Was She to Him? By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
591--A Heritage of Hate By Charles Garvice
592--Ida Chaloner’s Heart By Lucy Randall Comfort
593--Love Will Find the Way By Wenona Gilman
594--A Case of Identity By Richard Marsh
595--The Shadow of Her Life By Charles Garvice
596--Slighted Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
597--Her Fatal Gift By Geraldine Fleming
598--His Wife’s Friend By Mary E. Bryan
599--At Love’s Cost By Charles Garvice
600--St. Elmo By Augusta J. Evans
601--The Fate of the Plotter By Louis Tracy
602--Married in Error By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
603--Love and Jealousy By Lucy Randall Comfort
604--Only a Working Girl By Geraldine Fleming
605--Love, the Tyrant By Charles Garvice
606--Mabel’s Sacrifice By Charlotte M. Stanley
608--Love is Love Forevermore By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
609--John Elliott’s Flirtation By Lucy May Russell
610--With All Her Heart By Charles Garvice
611--Is Love Worth While? By Geraldine Fleming
612--Her Husband’s Other Wife By Emma Garrison Jones
613--Philip Bennion’s Death By Richard Marsh
614--Little Phillis’ Lover By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
615--Maida By Charles Garvice
617--As a Man Lives By E. Phillips Oppenheim
618--The Tide of Fate By Wenona Gilman
619--The Cardinal Moth By Fred M. White
620--Marcia Drayton By Charles Garvice
621--Lynette’s Wedding By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
622--His Madcap Sweetheart By Emma Garrison Jones
623--Love at the Loom By Geraldine Fleming
624--A Bachelor Girl By Lucy May Russell
625--Kyra’s Fate By Charles Garvice
626--The Joss By Richard Marsh
627--My Little Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
628--A Daughter of the Marionis By E. Phillips Oppenheim
629--The Lady of Beaufort Park By Wenona Gilman
630--The Verdict of the Heart By Charles Garvice
631--A Love Concealed By Emma Garrison Jones
633--The Strange Disappearance of Lady Delia By Louis Tracy
634--Love’s Golden Spell By Geraldine Fleming
635--A Coronet of Shame By Charles Garvice
636--Sinned Against By Mary E. Bryan
637--If It Were True! By Wenona Gilman
638--A Golden Barrier By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
639--A Hateful Bondage By Barbara Howard
640--A Girl of Spirit By Charles Garvice
641--Master of Men By E. Phillips Oppenheim
642--A Fair Enchantress By Ida Reade Allen
643--The Power of Love By Geraldine Fleming
644--No Time for Penitence By Wenona Gilman
645--A Jest of Fate By Charles Garvice
646--Her Sister’s Secret By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
647--Bitterly Atoned By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
648--Gertrude Elliott’s Crucible By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
649--The Corner House By Fred M. White
650--Diana’s Destiny By Charles Garvice
651--Love’s Clouded Dawn By Wenona Gilman
652--Little Vixen By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
653--Her Heart’s Challenge By Barbara Howard
654--Vivian’s Love Story By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
655--Linked by Fate By Charles Garvice
656--Hearts of Stone By Geraldine Fleming
657--In the Service of Love By Richard Marsh
658--Love’s Devious Course By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
659--Told in the Twilight By Ida Reade Allen
660--The Mills of the Gods By Wenona Gilman
661--The Man of the Hour By Sir William Magnay
662--A Little Barbarian By Charlotte Kingsley
663--Creatures of Destiny By Charles Garvice
664--A Southern Princess By Emma Garrison Jones
666--A Fateful Promise By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
667--The Goddess--A Demon By Richard Marsh
668--From Tears to Smiles By Ida Reade Allen
670--Better Than Riches By Wenona Gilman
671--When Love Is Young By Charles Garvice
672--Craven Fortune By Fred M. White
673--Her Life’s Burden By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
674--The Heart of Hetta By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
675--The Breath of Slander By Ida Reade Allen
676--My Lady Beth By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
677--The Wooing of Esther Gray By Louis Tracy
678--The Shadow Between Them By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
679--Gold in the Gutter By Charles Garvice
680--Master of Her Fate By Geraldine Fleming
681--In Full Cry By Richard Marsh
682--My Pretty Maid By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
683--An Unhappy Bargain By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
684--Her Enduring Love By Ida Reade Allen
685--India’s Punishment By Laura Jean Libbey
686--The Castle of the Shadows By Mrs. C. N. Williamson
687--My Own Sweetheart By Wenona Gilman
688--Only a Kiss By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
689--Lola Dunbar’s Crime By Barbara Howard
690--Ruth, the Outcast By Mrs. Mary E. Bryan
691--Her Dearest Love By Geraldine Fleming
692--The Man of Millions By Ida Reade Allen
693--For Another’s Fault By Charlotte M. Stanley
694--The Belle of Saratoga By Lucy Randall Comfort
695--The Mystery of the Unicorn By Sir William Magnay
696--The Bride’s Opals By Emma Garrison Jones
697--One of Life’s Roses By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
698--The Battle of Hearts By Geraldine Fleming
700--In Wolf’s Clothing By Charles Garvice
701--A Lost Sweetheart By Ida Reade Allen
702--The Stronger Passion By Mrs. Lillian R. Drayton
703--Mr. Marx’s Secret By E. Phillips Oppenheim
704--Had She Loved Him Less! By Laura Jean Libbey
705--The Adventure of Princess Sylvia By Mrs. C. N. Williamson
706--In Love’s Paradise By Charlotte M. Stanley
707--At Another’s Bidding By Ida Reade Allen
708--Sold for Gold By Geraldine Fleming
710--Ridgeway of Montana By William MacLeod Raine
711--Taken by Storm By Emma Garrison Jones
712--Love and a Lie By Charles Garvice
713--Barriers of Stone By Wenona Gilman
714--Ethel’s Secret By Charlotte M. Stanley
715--Amber, the Adopted By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
716--No Man’s Wife By Ida Reade Allen
717--Wild and Willful By Lucy Randall Comfort
718--When We Two Parted By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
719--Love’s Earnest Prayer By Geraldine Fleming
720--The Price of a Kiss By Laura Jean Libbey
721--A Girl from the South By Charles Garvice
722--A Freak of Fate By Emma Garrison Jones
723--A Golden Sorrow By Charlotte M. Stanley
724--Norna’s Black Fortune By Ida Reade Allen
725--The Thoroughbred By Edith MacVane
726--Diana’s Peril By Dorothy Hall
727--His Willing Slave By Lillian R. Drayton
728--Her Share of Sorrow By Wenona Gilman
729--Loved at Last By Geraldine Fleming
730--John Hungerford’s Redemption By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
731--His Two Loves By Ida Reade Allen
732--Eric Braddon’s Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
733--Garrison’s Finish By W. B. M. Ferguson
734--Sylvia, the Forsaken By Charlotte M. Stanley
735--Married for Money By Lucy Randall Comfort
736--Married in Haste By Wenona Gilman
737--At Her Father’s Bidding By Geraldine Fleming
738--The Power of Gold By Ida Reade Allen
739--The Strength of Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
740--A Soul Laid Bare By J. K. Egerton
741--The Fatal Ruby By Charles Garvice
742--A Strange Wooing By Richard Marsh
743--A Lost Love By Wenona Gilman
744--A Useless Sacrifice By Emma Garrison Jones
745--A Will of Her Own By Ida Reade Allen
746--That Girl Named Hazel By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
747--For a Flirt’s Love By Geraldine Fleming
748--The World’s Great Snare By E. Phillips Oppenheim
749--The Heart of a Maid By Charles Garvice
750--Driven from Home By Wenona Gilman
751--The Gypsy’s Warning By Emma Garrison Jones
752--Without Name or Wealth By Ida Reade Allen
753--Loyal Unto Death By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
754--His Lost Heritage By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
755--Her Priceless Love By Geraldine Fleming
756--Leola’s Heart By Charlotte M. Stanley
757--Dare-devil Betty By Evelyn Malcolm
758--The Woman in It By Charles Garvice
759--They Met by Chance By Ida Reade Allen
760--Love Conquers Pride By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
761--A Reckless Promise By Emma Garrison Jones
762--The Rose of Yesterday By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
763--The Other Girl’s Lover By Lillian R. Drayton
764--His Unbounded Faith By Charlotte M. Stanley
765--When Love Speaks By Evelyn Malcolm
766--The Man She Hated By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
767--No One to Help Her By Ida Reade Allen
768--Claire’s Love-Life By Lucy Randall Comfort
769--Love’s Harvest By Adelaide Fox Robinson
770--A Queen of Song By Geraldine Fleming
771--Nan Haggard’s Confession By Mary E. Bryan
772--A Married Flirt By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
773--The Thorns of Love By Evelyn Malcolm
774--Love in a Snare By Charles Garvice
775--My Love Kitty By Charles Garvice
776--That Strange Girl By Charles Garvice
777--Nellie By Charles Garvice
778--Miss Estcourt; or, Olive By Charles Garvice
779--A Virginia Goddess By Ida Reade Allen
780--The Love He Sought By Lillian R. Drayton
781--Falsely Accused By Geraldine Fleming
782--His First Sweetheart By Lucy Randall Comfort
783--All for Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
784--What Love Can Cost By Evelyn Malcolm
785--Lady Gay’s Martyrdom By Charlotte May Kingsley
786--His Good Angel By Emma Garrison Jones
787--A Bartered Soul By Adelaide Fox Robinson
788--In Love’s Shadows By Ida Reade Allen
789--A Love Worth Winning By Geraldine Fleming
790--The Fatal Kiss By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
791--A Lover Scorned By Lucy Randall Comfort
792--After Many Days By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
793--An Innocent Outlaw By William Wallace Cook
794--The Arm of the Law By Evelyn Malcolm
795--The Reluctant Queen By J. Kenilworth Egerton
796--The Cost of Pride By Lillian R. Drayton
797--What Love Made Her By Geraldine Fleming
798--Brave Heart By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
799--Between Good and Evil By Charlotte M. Stanley
800--Caught in Love’s Net By Ida Reade Allen
801--Love is a Mystery By Adelaide Fox Robinson
802--The Glitter of Jewels By J. Kenilworth Egerton
803--The Game of Life By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
804--A Dreadful Legacy By Geraldine Fleming
805--Rogers, of Butte By William Wallace Cook
806--The Haunting Past By Evelyn Malcolm
807--The Love That Would Not Die By Ida Reade Allen
808--The Serpent and the Dove By Charlotte May Kingsley
809--Through the Shadows By Adelaide Fox Robinson
810--Her Kingdom By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
811--When Dark Clouds Gather By Geraldine Fleming
812--Her Fateful Choice By Charlotte M. Stanley
813--Sorely Tried By Emma Garrison Jones
814--Far Above Price By Evelyn Malcolm
815--Bitter Sweet By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
816--A Clouded Life By Ida Reade Allen
817--When Fate Decrees By Adelaide Fox Robinson
818--The Girl Who Was True By Charles Garvice
819--Where Love is Sent By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
820--The Pride of My Heart By Laura Jean Libbey
821--The Girl in Red By Evelyn Malcolm
822--Why Did She Shun Him? By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
823--Between Love and Conscience By Charlotte M. Stanley
824--Spectres of the Past By Ida Reade Allen
825--The Hearts of the Mighty By Adelaide Fox Robinson
826--The Irony of Love By Charles Garvice
827--At Arms With Fate By Charlotte May Kingsley
828--Love’s Young Dream By Laura Jean Libbey
829--Her Golden Secret By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
830--The Stolen Bride By Evelyn Malcolm
831--Love’s Rugged Pathway By Ida Reade Allen
832--A Love Rejected--A Love Won By Geraldine Fleming
833--Her Life’s Dark Cloud By Lillian R. Drayton
834--A Hero for Love’s Sake By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
835--When the Heart Hungers By Charlotte M. Stanley
836--Love Given in Vain By Adelaide Fox Robinson
837--The Web of Life By Ida Reade Allen
838--Love Surely Triumphs By Charlotte May Kingsley
839--The Lovely Constance By Laura Jean Libbey
840--On a Sea of Sorrow By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
841--Her Hated Husband By Evelyn Malcolm
842--When Hearts Beat True By Geraldine Fleming
843--WO2 By Maurice Drake
844--Too Quickly Judged By Ida Reade Allen
845--For Her Husband’s Love By Charlotte May Stanley
846--The Fatal Rose By Adelaide Fox Robinson
847--The Love That Prevailed By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
848--Just an Angel By Lillian R. Drayton
849--Stronger Than Fate By Emma Garrison Jones
850--A Life’s Love By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
851--From Dreams to Waking By Charlotte M. Kingsley
852--A Barrier Between Them By Evelyn Malcolm
853--His Love for Her By Geraldine Fleming
854--A Changeling’s Love By Ida Reade Allen
855--Could He Have Known! By Charlotte May Stanley
856--Loved in Vain By Adelaide Fox Robinson
857--The Fault of One By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
858--Her Life’s Desire By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
859--A Wife Yet no Wife By Lillian R. Drayton
860--Her Twentieth Guest By Emma Garrison Jones
861--The Love Knot By Charlotte M. Kingsley
862--Tricked into Marriage By Evelyn Malcolm
863--The Spell She Wove By Geraldine Fleming
864--The Mistress of the Farm By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
865--Chained to a Villain By Ida Reade Allen
866--No Mother to Guide Her By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
867--His Heritage By W. B. M. Ferguson
868--All Lost But Love By Emma Garrison Jones
869--With Heart Bowed Down By Charlotte May Kingsley
870--Her Slave Forever By Evelyn Malcolm
871--To Love and Not be Loved By Ida Reade Allen
872--My Pretty Jane By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
873--She Scoffed at Love By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
874--The Woman Without a Heart By Emma Garrison Jones
875--Shall We Forgive Her? By Charlotte May Kingsley
876--A Sad Coquette By Evelyn Malcolm
877--The Curse of Wealth By Ida Reade Allen
878--Long Since Forgiven By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
879--Life’s Richest Jewel By Adelaide Fox Robinson
880--Leila Vane’s Burden By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
881--Face to Face With Love By Lillian R. Drayton
882--Margery, the Pearl By Emma Garrison Jones
883--Love’s Keen Eyes By Charlotte May Kingsley
884--Misjudged By Evelyn Malcolm
885--What True Love Is By Ida Reade Allen
886--A Well Kept Secret By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
887--The Survivor By E. Phillips Oppenheim
888--Light of His Heart By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
889--Bound by Gratitude By Lillian R. Drayton
890--Against Love’s Rules By Emma Garrison Jones
891--Alone With Her Sorrow By Charlotte May Kingsley
892--When the Heart is Bitter By Evelyn Malcolm
893--Only Love’s Fancy By Ida Reade Allen
894--The Wife He Chose By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
895--Love and Louisa By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
896--A Terrible Secret By May Agnes Fleming
To be published during August, 1914.
897--When To-morrow Came By May Agnes Fleming
898--Wedded for Wealth By Lillian R. Drayton
899--Laurel, the Faithful By Emma Garrison Jones
900--A Question of Honor By Charlotte May Kingsley
To be published during September, 1914.
901--The Seed of Hate By Evelyn Malcolm
902--A Queen at Heart By Ida Reade Allen
903--Married Too Early By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
904--A Mad Marriage By May Agnes Fleming
905--A Woman Without Mercy By May Agnes Fleming
To be published during October, 1914.
906--The Cost of a Promise By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
907--Hope’s Winding Path By Adelaide Fox Robinson
908--The Wine of Love By Lillian R. Drayton
909--Just for a Title By Emma Garrison Jones
To be published during November, 1914.
910--Blunder of an Innocent By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
911--A Little Impostor By Charlotte May Kingsley
912--One Night’s Mystery By May Agnes Fleming
913--The Cost of a Lie By May Agnes Fleming
To be published during December, 1914.
914--Love’s Fetters By Evelyn Malcolm
915--The Good and the Bad By Ida Reade Allen
916--The Fortunes of Love By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
917--Forever and a Day By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
918--All in Vain By Adelaide Fox Robinson
To be published during January, 1915.
919--When the Heart Sings By Lillian R. Drayton
920--Silent and True By May Agnes Fleming
921--A Treasure Lost By May Agnes Fleming
In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the
books listed above will be issued, during the respective months, in New
York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers, at a distance,
promptly, on account of delays in transportation.
THE EAGLE SERIES
Principally Copyrights Elegant Colored Covers
While the books in the New Eagle Series are undoubtedly better value,
being bigger books, the stories offered to the public in this line
must not be underestimated. There are over four hundred copyrighted
books by famous authors, which cannot be had in any other line. No
other publisher in the world has a line that contains so many different
titles, nor can any publisher ever hope to secure books that will match
those in the Eagle Series in quality.
This is the pioneer line of copyrighted novels, and that it has struck
popular fancy just right is proven by the fact that for fifteen years
it has been the first choice of American readers. The only reason
that we can afford to give such excellent reading at such a low
price is that our unlimited capital and great organization enable us
to manufacture books more cheaply and to sell more of them without
expensive advertising, than any other publishers.
ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT
TO THE PUBLIC:--These books are sold by news dealers everywhere. If
your dealer does not keep them, and will not get them for you, send
direct to the publishers, in which case four cents must be added to
the price per copy to cover postage.
3--The Love of Violet Lee By Julia Edwards
4--For a Woman’s Honor By Bertha M. Clay
5--The Senator’s Favorite By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
6--The Midnight Marriage By A. M. Douglas
8--Beautiful But Poor By Julia Edwards
9--The Virginia Heiress By May Agnes Fleming
10--Little Sunshine By Francis S. Smith
11--The Gipsy’s Daughter By Bertha M. Clay
13--The Little Widow By Julia Edwards
14--Violet Lisle By Bertha M. Clay
15--Dr. Jack By St. George Rathborne
16--The Fatal Card By Haddon Chambers and B. C. Stephenson
17--Leslie’s Loyalty (His Love So True) By Charles Garvice
18--Dr. Jack’s Wife By St. George Rathborne
19--Mr. Lake of Chicago By Harry DuBois Milman
21--A Heart’s Idol By Bertha M. Clay
22--Elaine By Charles Garvice
23--Miss Pauline of New York By St. George Rathborne
24--A Wasted Love (On Love’s Altar) By Charles Garvice
25--Little Southern Beauty By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
26--Captain Tom By St. George Rathborne
27--Estelle’s Millionaire Lover By Julia Edwards
28--Miss Caprice By St. George Rathborne
29--Theodora By Victorien Sardou
30--Baron Sam By St. George Rathborne
31--A Siren’s Love By Robert Lee Tyler
32--The Blockade Runner By J. Perkins Tracy
33--Mrs. Bob By St. George Rathborne
34--Pretty Geraldine By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
35--The Great Mogul By St. George Rathborne
36--Fedora By Victorien Sardou
37--The Heart of Virginia By J. Perkins Tracy
38--The Nabob of Singapore By St. George Rathborne
39--The Colonel’s Wife By Warren Edwards
40--Monsieur Bob By St. George Rathborne
41--Her Heart’s Desire (An Innocent Girl) By Charles Garvice
42--Another Woman’s Husband By Bertha M. Clay
43--Little Coquette Bonnie By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
45--A Yale Man By Robert Lee Tyler
46--Off with the Old Love By Mrs. M. V. Victor
47--The Colonel by Brevet By St. George Rathborne
48--Another Man’s Wife By Bertha M. Clay
49--None But the Brave By Robert Lee Tyler
50--Her Ransom (Paid For) By Charles Garvice
51--The Price He Paid By E. Werner
52--Woman Against Woman By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
54--Cleopatra By Victorien Sardou
56--The Dispatch Bearer By Warren Edwards
58--Major Matterson of Kentucky By St. George Rathborne
59--Gladys Greye By Bertha M. Clay
61--La Tosca By Victorien Sardou
62--Stella Stirling By Julia Edwards
63--Lawyer Bell from Boston By Robert Lee Tyler
64--Dora Tenney By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
65--Won by the Sword By J. Perkins Tracy
67--Gismonda By Victorien Sardou
68--The Little Cuban Rebel By Edna Winfield
69--His Perfect Trust By Bertha M. Clay
70--Sydney (A Wilful Young Woman) By Charles Garvice
71--The Spider’s Web By St. George Rathborne
72--Wilful Winnie By Harriet Sherburne
73--The Marquis By Charles Garvice
74--The Cotton King By Sutton Vane
75--Under Fire By T. P. James
76--Mavourneen From the celebrated play
78--The Yankee Champion By Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.
79--Out of the Past (Marjorie) By Charles Garvice
80--The Fair Maid of Fez By St. George Rathborne
81--Wedded for an Hour By Emma Garrison Jones
82--Captain Impudence By Edwin Milton Royle
83--The Locksmith of Lyons By Prof. Wm. Henry Peck
84--Imogene (Dumaresq’s Temptation) By Charles Garvice
85--Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold By Charles Garvice
86--A Widowed Bride By Lucy Randall Comfort
87--Shenandoah By J. Perkins Tracy
89--A Gentleman from Gascony By Bicknell Dudley
90--For Fair Virginia By Russ Whytal
91--Sweet Violet By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
92--Humanity By Sutton Vane
94--Darkest Russia By H. Grattan Donnelly
95--A Wilful Maid (Philippa) By Charles Garvice
96--The Little Minister By J. M. Barrie
97--The War Reporter By Warren Edwards
98--Claire (The Mistress of Court Regna) By Charles Garvice
100--Alice Blake By Francis S. Smith
101--A Goddess of Africa By St. George Rathborne
102--Sweet Cymbeline (Bellmaire) By Charles Garvice
103--The Span of Life By Sutton Vane
104--A Proud Dishonor By Genie Holzmeyer
105--When London Sleeps By Chas. Darrell
106--Lillian, My Lillian By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
107--Carla; or, Married at Sight By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
108--A Son of Mars By St. George Rathborne
109--Signa’s Sweetheart (Lord Delamere’s Bride) By Charles Garvice
110--Whose Wife is She? By Annie Lisle
112--The Cattle King By A. D. Hall
113--A Crushed Lily By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
114--Half a Truth By Dora Delmar
115--A Fair Revolutionist By St. George Rathborne
116--The Daughter of the Regiment By Mary A. Denison
117--She Loved Him By Charles Garvice
118--Saved from the Sea By Richard Duffy
119--’Twixt Smile and Tear (Dulcie) By Charles Garvice
120--The White Squadron By T. C. Harbaugh
121--Cecile’s Marriage By Lucy Randall Comfort
123--Northern Lights By A. D. Hall
124--Prettiest of All By Julia Edwards
125--Devil’s Island By A. D. Hall
126--The Girl from Hong Kong By St. George Rathborne
127--Nobody’s Daughter By Clara Augusta
128--The Scent of the Roses By Dora Delmar
129--In Sight of St. Paul’s By Sutton Vane
130--A Passion Flower (Madge) By Charles Garvice
131--Nerine’s Second Choice By Adelaide Stirling
132--Whose Was the Crime? By Gertrude Warden
134--Squire John By St. George Rathborne
135--Cast Up by the Tide By Dora Delmar
136--The Unseen Bridegroom By May Agnes Fleming
138--A Fatal Wooing By Laura Jean Libbey
139--Little Lady Charles By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
140--That Girl of Johnson’s By Jean Kate Ludlum
141--Lady Evelyn By May Agnes Fleming
142--Her Rescue from the Turks By St. George Rathborne
143--A Charity Girl By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
145--Country Lanes and City Pavements By Maurice M. Minton
146--Magdalen’s Vow By May Agnes Fleming
147--Under Egyptian Skies By St. George Rathborne
148--Will She Win? By Emma Garrison Jones
149--The Man She Loved By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
150--Sunset Pass By General Charles King
151--The Heiress of Glen Gower By May Agnes Fleming
152--A Mute Confessor By Will M. Harben
153--Her Son’s Wife By Hazel Wood
154--Husband and Foe By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
156--A Soldier Lover By Edward S. Brooks
157--Who Wins? By May Agnes Fleming
158--Stella, the Star By Wenona Gilman
159--Out of Eden By Dora Russell
160--His Way and Her Will By Frances Aymar Mathews
161--Miss Fairfax of Virginia By St. George Rathborne
162--A Man of the Name of John By Florence King
163--A Splendid Egotist By Mrs. J. H. Walworth
164--Couldn’t Say No By John Habberton
165--The Road of the Rough By Maurice M. Minton
167--The Manhattaners By Edward S. Van Zile
168--Thrice Lost, Thrice Won By May Agnes Fleming
169--The Trials of an Actress By Wenona Gilman
170--A Little Radical By Mrs. J. H. Walworth
171--That Dakota Girl By Stella Gilman
172--A King and a Coward By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
173--A Bar Sinister By St. George Rathborne
174--His Guardian Angel By Charles Garvice
175--For Honor’s Sake By Laura C. Ford
176--Jack Gordon, Knight Errant By Barclay North
178--A Slave of Circumstances By Ernest De Lancey Pierson
179--One Man’s Evil By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
180--A Lazy Man’s Work By Frances Campbell Sparhawk
181--The Baronet’s Bride By May Agnes Fleming
182--A Legal Wreck By William Gillette
183--Quo Vadis By Henryk Sienkiewicz
184--Sunlight and Gloom By Geraldine Fleming
185--The Adventures of Miss Volney By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
186--Beneath a Spell By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
187--The Black Ball By Ernest De Lancey Pierson
189--Berris By Katharine S. MacQuoid
190--A Captain of the Kaiser By St. George Rathborne
191--A Harvest of Thorns By Mrs. H. C. Hoffman
193--A Vagabond’s Honor By Ernest De Lancey Pierson
194--A Sinless Crime By Geraldine Fleming
195--Her Faithful Knight By Gertrude Warden
196--A Sailor’s Sweetheart By St. George Rathborne
197--A Woman Scorned By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
200--In God’s Country By D. Higbee
201--Blind Elsie’s Crime By Mary Grace Halpine
202--Marjorie By Katharine S. MacQuoid
203--Only One Love By Charles Garvice
204--With Heart So True By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
205--If Love Be Love By D. Cecil Gibbs
206--A Daughter of Maryland By G. Waldo Browne
208--A Chase for a Bride By St. George Rathborne
209--She Loved But Left Him By Julia Edwards
211--As We Forgive By Lurana W. Sheldon
212--Doubly Wronged By Adah M. Howard
213--The Heiress of Egremont By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
214--Olga’s Crime By Frank Barrett
215--Only a Girl’s Love By Charles Garvice
216--The Lost Bride By Clara Augusta
217--His Noble Wife By George Manville Fenn
218--A Life for a Love By Mrs. L. T. Meade
220--A Fatal Past By Dora Russell
221--The Honorable Jane By Annie Thomas
223--Leola Dale’s Fortune By Charles Garvice
224--A Sister’s Sacrifice By Geraldine Fleming
225--A Miserable Woman By Mrs. H. C. Hoffman
226--The Roll of Honor By Annie Thomas
227--The Joy of Loving By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
228--His Brother’s Widow By Mary Grace Halpine
229--For the Sake of the Family By May Crommelin
230--A Woman’s Atonement, and A Mother’s Mistake By Adah M. Howard
231--The Earl’s Heir (Lady Norah) By Charles Garvice
232--A Debt of Honor By Mabel Collins
234--His Mother’s Sin By Adeline Sergeant
235--Love at Saratoga By Lucy Randall Comfort
236--Her Humble Lover (The Usurper; or, The Gipsy Peer) By Charles Garvice
A Woman’s Soul
BY
CHARLES GARVICE
AUTHOR OF
“CLAIRE,” “HER HEART’S DESIRE,” “HER RANSOM,”
“ELAINE,” ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS.
CHAPTER II. OVER THE FENCE.
CHAPTER III. “IF I SHOULD FAIL.”
CHAPTER IV. AT THE TOWERS.
CHAPTER V. AN IDEAL JULIET.
CHAPTER VI. A BUNCH OF VIOLETS.
CHAPTER VII. A RARE DIAMOND.
CHAPTER VIII. SPENSER CHURCHILL.
CHAPTER IX. A SECRET COMPACT.
CHAPTER X. FOR HIM ALONE.
CHAPTER XI. LOVE’S SUBTLE SPELL.
CHAPTER XII. TO WED AN ACTRESS.
CHAPTER XIII. AN ACCEPTED OFFER.
CHAPTER XIV. A BROKEN TRYST.
CHAPTER XV. A TERRIBLE THREAT.
CHAPTER XVI. THE PART OF A HYPOCRITE.
CHAPTER XVII. A CHANCE FOR ESCAPE.
CHAPTER XVIII. FASHIONING THE WEB.
CHAPTER XIX. IN STRANGE SURROUNDINGS.
CHAPTER XX. AN EXTRAORDINARY PROPOSAL.
CHAPTER XXI. AN ART PATRON.
CHAPTER XXII. TWO SONG BIRDS.
CHAPTER XXIII. A SAD HOME-COMING.
CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE HOUR OF NEED.
CHAPTER XXV. AS IN A DREAM.
CHAPTER XXVI. NOT LOVE, BUT PITY.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE GLASS OF FASHION.
CHAPTER XXVIII. ENGAGED.
CHAPTER XXIX. WICKED LORD STOYLE.
CHAPTER XXX. IN THE TOILS.
CHAPTER XXXI. A POSTPONEMENT.
CHAPTER XXXII. “I LOVE HIM STILL.”
CHAPTER XXXIII. OUT OF THE PAST.
CHAPTER XXXIV. “I, TOO, AM FREE.”
CHAPTER XXXV. THE APPROACH OF THE SHADOW.
CHAPTER XXXVI. CONSPIRATORS.
CHAPTER XXXVII. FOILED.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. RETRIBUTION.
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A WOMAN’S SOUL.
CHAPTER I.
BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS.
“Good-night! Good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say
good-night till it be morrow!”
The speaker was a young girl, who stood in the middle of the room,
her hands clasped, her head bent forward, her eyes fixed in a dreamy
rapture, and the remark was addressed to--no one.
She paused, sighed a little--not from impatience, but with a wistful
dissatisfaction--and absently moved to the window, through which the
last rays of the June sun were flickering redly.
She stood there for a moment or two, then began to pace the room with a
lithe, undulating grace. It was a pity that she was alone, because such
beauty and grace were wasted on the desert air of the rather grim and
dingy room. It was a pity that Sir John Everett Millais, or Mr. Edwin
Long, or some other of the great portrait painters were not present to
transfer her beauty of face and form, for it was a loveliness of no
common order.
Many a poet’s pen had attempted to describe Doris Marlowe, but it
may safely be said that not one had succeeded; and not even a great
portrait painter could have depicted the mobility of her clear, oval
face, and its dark eyes and sensitive lips--eyes and lips so full of
expression that people were sometimes almost convinced that she had
spoken before she had uttered a word.
This evening, and at this moment, her face was all alive, as it were,
with expression, as she put up her hand to smooth back the thick
tresses of dark brown hair--so dark that it was almost black--and,
stopping suddenly before a pier glass which stood at the end of the
room, repeated the familiar lines:
“Good-night! Good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say
good-night till it be morrow!”
“Ah, no! No, no, no!” she exclaimed, stamping her foot and drawing her
brows together at the reflection in the glass. “That is not it, nor
anything like it. I shall never get it! Never! Nev----”
The door opened behind her, and she turned her wistful, dissatisfied,
restless face over her shoulder toward the comer. It was an old man,
bent almost double, with a thin and haggard face, from which gleamed a
pair of dark eyes so brilliant and peering that they made the rest of
the face look almost lifeless. He looked at her keenly, as he paused as
if for breath, and, still looking at her, went to the table and laid a
long roll of paper upon it; then he sank into a chair, and, leaning on
his stick, said, in a hollow voice:
“Well?”
“But it isn’t well, Jeffrey. It’s bad, as bad as could be!” and the
mobile lips allowed a quick, impatient laugh to escape, then compressed
themselves as if annoyed at their levity. “I cannot do it! I cannot!
I have tried it a hundred times, a thousand times! And it sounds more
like--oh, it sounds more like a servant-maid saying, ‘Good-night,
good-night, call me at seven to-morrow!’ than Juliet’s immortal adieu!”
“Does it?” said the old man, calmly.
“Yes, it does; very much!” she retorted, half laughing again. “Oh,
Jeffrey, I can’t do it, and that is the simple truth! Tell them I
cannot do it, and--and beg me off.”
The old man stretched out his hand slowly, and taking the paper from
the table, as slowly unfastened it and displayed it at full length.
It was a playbill, printed in the usual style, in red and blue ink--
Theatre Royal, Barton.
“Romeo and Juliet.”
Miss Doris Marlowe as Juliet.
The girl looked at it, a faint color coming into her face; then she
raised her eyes to the glittering ones above the placard and shook her
head.
“Miss Doris Marlowe will murder Juliet!” she said; “that is what it
will be, Jeffrey--simple murder. You must prevent the perpetration of
so hideous a crime!”
“Too late!” he said in his hollow voice; “the bills are already out.
The play is advertised in the papers; they were booking at the theatre
when I left. You must play it. What is the matter?”
“The matter----” she began, then stopped abruptly, as if in despair.
“I don’t know what is the matter. I only feel as if--oh, as if I
were any one but Juliet. Why didn’t you let me go on playing little
comedy parts, Jeffrey? I could do those after a fashion--but Juliet!
I ought to be flattered,” and she looked at the bill, “but I am very
frightened!” and she laughed again.
“Frightened!” he said, his thick white brows coming together. “Why
should you be frightened? Have I not told you you could do it, and do I
not know? Am I ever wrong?”
“No, no,” she hastened to reply. “You are always right, and it is I who
am always wrong. And indeed, Jeffrey, dear, I will try! I will try for
your sake!” and she glided across to his chair and laid her hand--a
long, white hand, soft and slim as a child’s--upon his shoulder with
tender docility.
“Try for your own,” he said, not unkindly, but gravely. “Try for art’s
sake, and yet--yes, try for mine! You know how I have set my dream on
your success--you know that it is the dream, the aim of my life! Ever
since you were a child and sat upon my knee looking up into my face
with your great eyes, I have looked forward to the day when the world
should acknowledge that Jeffrey Flint could make a great actor though
he failed himself!”
The dark eyes glittered still more keenly as he spoke, and the hand
that held the playbill tightened.
“You will succeed if you set your heart on it,” he said more calmly.
“You have done well up to now; I haven’t praised you: that is not my
way; but--but--I am satisfied. Up to now you have got on in regular
strides--to-morrow night is the great leap! The great chance that
seldom comes more than once in a life. Take it, Doris, take it!”
“Yes, Jeffrey,” she said, softly; but he heard the sigh she tried to
stifle and looked up.
“Well?” he said grimly. “You would say----”
She moved away from him and leaned against the table, her hands clasped
loosely.
“I was going to say that it seems to me as if all the trying in
the world would not make me a Shakespeare’s Juliet! The lines are
beautiful, and I know them--oh, yes, I know them, but----” she paused,
then went on dreamily: “Do you think any young girl, any one so young
as I am, could play it properly, Jeffrey?”
“Juliet was fourteen,” he said, grimly.
Doris smiled.
“That’s a mistake, I think, Jeffrey; she was eighteen, most people say!
Oh, she was young enough; yes, but--but then you see she had met Romeo.”
The old man looked at her attentively, then his keen gaze dropped to
the floor.
“Is it necessary for an actor to have actually died before he can
perfectly represent a death scene?” he asked.
She laughed, and a faint blush rose to her face.
“Perhaps dying isn’t so important as falling in love, Jeffrey; but it
seems to me that one must have loved--and lost--before one can play
Juliet, and I’ve done neither.”
He made no response to this piece of speculation; but after some
minutes’ silence he said:
“Do some of it, Doris.”
She started slightly, as if he had awakened her from a dream, and
recited some of the lines.
The old man watched her, and listened anxiously at first, then with
rapt attention, as, losing herself in the part, she grew more emphatic
and spontaneous; but suddenly she stopped.
“It will not do, Jeffrey, will it?” she said, quickly. “There--there is
no heart in it, is there? Don’t tell me it’s all right!” she pleaded.
“I always like the truth from you--at least!”
“And you get it,” he said, grimly. “No, it is not all right. You
look----” he stopped--“and your voice is musical and thrilling,
but--there is something wanting yet. Do not give it up--it will all
come right. To-morrow with the lights and the people--there will be a
full house, crammed--the feeling you want will come, and I shall be
satisfied.”
He rose and rolled up the paper.
“I have to go back to the theatre.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said, quickly.
“No,” he said; “you are better alone. Take your book and go out into
the fields. This room is not large enough--” and he passed out.
She understood him and, after a moment or two of reflection, got her
hat, murmuring as she ran down the stairs--
“Dear old Jeffrey, I must do it for his sake.”
Doris Marlowe, as she passed down the quiet street, was as unlike the
popular idea of an actress as it is possible to imagine. It is too
generally supposed by the great public that an actress must necessarily
be “loud” in word, dress and voice, that she must be affected on and
off the stage, and that her behavior is as objectionable as her manner
and attire. If the usual run of actresses are of this fashion, Doris
was a singular exception to this rule. Her voice was soft and low, and
as refined in its tones as the daughter of an earl; her manner was as
quiet as any well-bred lady’s could be, and in her plain white dress
and straw hat she looked as much like a schoolgirl as anything else,
especially as she had a copy of “Romeo and Juliet” in her hand, which
might have been mistaken for a French grammar.
There was in fact nothing “loud” about her; indeed, when off the stage
she was rather silent and shy, and the color was as apt to come into
her pale white cheeks as into those of the schoolgirl she resembled.
It was only from the quiet play of the dark thick brows, and the ever
changing expression of the eloquent eyes, that the keenest observer
would ever have detected that Doris Marlowe was something different
from the ordinary young lady whom one meets--and forgets--every day.
She passed up the street, her book held lightly in her hand, her eyes
fixed dreamily on the roseate sky, and watching the din and bustle of
the big manufacturing town which climbed up the hill in front of her,
turned aside, and, making her way up a leafy lane, reached the fields
which are as green as if Barton and its score of factory chimneys were
a hundred miles away.
There was not only green grass, but clumps of trees and a running
brook, and Doris, casting herself, after the fashion of her sex, on the
bank by the stream, opened the book and began to study.
But after a few minutes, during which she kept her eyes upon the
page with knitted brows, her thoughts began to wander, and, letting
the book slip to the ground, she leaned against the trunk of a tree,
and, clasping her hands around her knees, gave herself up to maiden
meditation, fancy-free.
And it was of herself--of all people in the world!--she was thinking.
She was looking back, recalling her past life, and marveling over it
with a pleasant little wonder.
And yet there was nothing very marvelous in it after all.
Ever since she could remember she and Jeffrey--“dear old Jeffrey!”--had
been alone. Ever since she could remember he had seemed to her as bent
and white-haired and old as he was now, and she knew no more of him, or
how it happened that he had stood to her in place of mother and father,
and kith and kin, than she knew now.
Of her real father and her mother she had always been totally ignorant.
As a child she had accepted Jeffrey as a fact, without questioning, and
when, in later years, she had put some questions about her parents to
him, she had equally accepted the answer.
“Ask me nothing, Doris. Your mother was an angel; your father----” Then
he had stopped and left her; and, from that day to this, Doris had not
repeated the question.
They had lived, she remembered, in complete solitude. Of Jeffrey’s
early life she knew nothing for certain, excepting that he had been an
actor; that he had been--and was--a gentleman; and that he had received
a good education.
She had no other tutor than he, and she could have had no better. With
a skill and patience which sprang from his love for her, he had taught
her as few girls are taught. As a child, she would speak and write
with wonderful fluency, and at the age most girls are struggling with
five-finger exercises, she could play a sonata of Beethoven’s with a
touch and brilliance which a professional might have envied.
Her strange guardian’s patience was untiring. He ransacked the stores
of his memory on her behalf, he spent hours explaining the inner
meaning of some line from Shakespeare--in showing her how to render a
difficult piece of music.
And when, one day, when her beautiful girlhood was rich with the
promise of a still more beautiful womanhood, she had looked up at him
laughingly, and said:
“Why do you take all this trouble with me, Jeffrey? What shall I do
with all these things you have taught me?” he had startled her by
turning to her with flashing eyes, and saying, with grim earnestness:
“I have taken all this trouble, as you call it, for this
reason--because I love you, and because I mean you to be a great
actress!”
She accepted his dictum without a word, or a thought of questioning
it. She knew, then, why he had taught her to love the great
poet--why he had made her, and still made her, recite whole plays of
Shakespeare--why he spent hours in showing her how such and such a
speech should be delivered. And she was grateful--as grateful as if he
had been rich and surrounded her with luxury, instead of being poor and
sharing with her the shabby rooms and simple fare which were the best
he could afford.
It was a gray and sober life, enlivened only by frequent visits to the
theatre. They had lived in France and Germany as well as in England,
and he had taken her to see the first players in each country.
“Remember,” he would say, when they had returned from seeing some
famous actress, “remember how she spoke that line, that is how it
should be delivered,” or, “Did you notice how Madame So-and-so went
off in the second scene? Then don’t go and do likewise!” and Doris’s
trained intellect had stored up the hints for future use.
It was a life of hard work, and some girls would have become dull and
listless, but Doris was light-hearted; her laugh was always ringing
in the dingy lodgings as if they were palaces and she was happy and
content.
Then had come the time of her first appearance on the stage. It is the
fashion nowadays for an actor to begin at the top of the ladder--and,
alas, how often he works downward! Jeffrey chose that the beautiful
girl whom he had trained so carefully should begin at the bottom.
“Learn to walk the stage, and deliver a simple message: that is
difficult enough at first, easy as it seems,” he had said; and
Doris put on cotton frocks and white caps, and played servant maids
for a time. From them she rose to young lady parts--always easy,
unpretentious ones, and always in the country theatres.
“When we take London it shall be by storm,” he said.
And so she went from one country town to another, and the young actress
grew more familiar with her art each month, and the critics began to
notice her, and to praise not only her beauty but her talent.
And all this time, Doris, even in the gayest surroundings of her daily
life, remained unsophisticated and natural. Jeffrey watched over her as
jealously as a father could have done.
He could not prevent people admiring her, but he kept the love letter,
the neat little cases of jewelry from her, and Doris--Doris Marlowe the
actress--was as ignorant and unconscious of the wickedness of the world
as the daughter of a country rector.
And as ignorant and innocent of love, save the love she had for the
strange, grim being who had lavished so much on her.
She had read of love in books, had acted it on the stage, but it was as
one who speaks a language he does not understand, and who marvels at
the effect his words have upon his initiated hearers.
Once a young actor, who had played lovers’ parts with her during a
season, had managed to speak with her alone--it was during the “wait”
between acts--and in faltering accents had tried to tell her that he
had dared to fall in love with the beautiful being so jealously guarded
by the dragon. Doris had listened for a moment or two, with her lovely
eyes wide open, with puzzled astonishment, then she said:
“Oh, please, don’t go on! I thought it was a part of the play,” and a
smile flashed over her face.
The young fellow grew black, and as he passed her to go on the stage,
muttered, “Heartless!”
But Doris was not heartless. She had smiled because her heart lay
too deep for him to touch, because, like the Sleeping Beauty, it was
waiting for the coming prince who should wake it into life and love,
and the young actor was not that prince.
Doris sat thinking of the past, quite lost, until the striking of a
church clock recalled her to the fact that a certain young lady was to
play Juliet to-morrow, and that the aforesaid young lady had come out
into the field to study it!
She took up the book with a sigh.
“I wish I could see some one play it,” she thought; and then there
flashed into her mind the memory of one night Jeffrey had taken her to
Drury Lane to see a famous actress in the part; but they did not see
her after all, for during the first act there had been one of those
slight but unmistakable movements in the audience which announces the
entrance of some one of importance.
Doris looked round, with the rest, and saw some persons come into a box
on the grand tier. Among them was an old gentleman, tall and thin, with
a remarkably distinguished presence. He wore a blue ribbon across his
waistcoat, but Doris had been attracted more by his face even than by
the ribbon.
It was a handsome face, but there was something in it, a certain cold
and pitiless hauteur, that seemed to strike a chill almost to Doris’
heart. As he stood in front of the box, and looked around the house
with an expression of contempt that was just too indolent to be sheer
hatred, she met the hard, merciless eyes and shuddered.
“Who is he, Jeffrey?” she asked, in a whisper, and touching his arm
with a hand that trembled a little.
Jeffrey’s rapt face had been fixed on the stage, but he turned and
looked at the distinguished personage, and Doris remembered now the
sudden pallor of his face, from which his glittering eyes had flashed
like two spots of red fire set in white ashes.
The look vanished in a moment and he made no reply, and a few minutes
afterward had said:
“It is too hot--let us go.”
Doris recalled the incident now, and wished they had stopped and seen
the great actress; especially as Jeffrey had always afterward avoided
“Romeo and Juliet,” as if the play had some painful association.
“I shall have to draw on Shakespeare alone for inspiration,” she
thought, looking at the brook. “But, ah! if only some one could only
teach me to say that ‘Good-night, good-night!’ properly.”
She was repeating the words in a dozen different tones, and shrugging
her shoulders discontentedly over each, when suddenly there came
another sound upon her ears beside that of her voice and the brook.
It was a dull thud, thud, on the meadow in front of her, and as it came
nearer a voice broke out in a kind of accompaniment, a voice singing
not unmusically:
“The Maids of Merry England, the Merry, Merry Maids of England!”
There was a hedge on the other side of the brook, and Doris raised
herself on her elbow and looked over.
What she saw was a young man galloping across the meadow at a breakneck
speed, which the horse seemed to enjoy as much as his rider.
Doris had never seen any one ride like that, and she was too absorbed
in the general spectacle to notice that the young man was singularly
handsome, and that he made, as he sat slightly in the saddle, with the
sunset rays turning the yellow of his mustache and hair to pure gold,
a picture which Murillo might have painted and christened “Youth and
Health.”
She watched for a moment or two; then, thinking herself safe from
observation behind her hedge, sank down again, and took up her book.
But the thud, thud, and the “Maids of Merry England” came nearer and
nearer. Then they stopped together, and a voice, speaking this time,
said:
“Hallo, old girl!--over with you!”
The next moment Doris saw horse and rider in the air, almost above her
head, and the next the horse was on its knees, with its nose on the
ground, and the rider lay stretched at her feet, as if a hand from the
blue sky had hurled him from his seat.