LENA LAVARRE’S STORY.
The two girls, Violet and Lena, spent the remaining hours of the night
in the garret of the lonely old woodland cabin.
As there was no bed, they could not sleep, but indeed they were so
excited that they did not care to do so. They preferred to remain awake
and discuss their plans for the future.
Although Violet was wild to communicate at once with Cecil Grant, she
permitted Lena to persuade her that it would be unwise to attempt it
yet.
“Harold Castello will be watching him very closely, and detection might
follow on the slightest correspondence. It is best to wait a while,”
she said.
For the same reason Violet’s first intention of seeking her father’s
relatives was tabooed, since it was natural that suspicion should be
directed toward them.
“Your best plan is to come home with me to my poor widowed mother, and
remain a while in hiding,” advised Lena Lavarre.
“But I have no money, dear Lena.”
“That makes no difference, my friend, for we have a cozy little home of
our own. Ah, would that I had never left it at the temptings of that
black-hearted scoundrel who won my heart and betrayed my trust!” sighed
Lena, with unavailing remorse.
“Tell me how it happened, please,” cried Violet, with girlish curiosity
over a love affair.
The poor girl dashed the bitter tears from her brown eyes and answered:
“It is a very simple story, dear Violet, though it ended so tragically.
To begin at the beginning, I made his acquaintance in a way that I am
ashamed of now--by a street flirtation! Pretty young girls are often
very vain and thoughtless; I’m afraid I was both, for I delighted
in the admiring glances I met from gay young men upon the street. I
forgot to tell you that my home is in Washington. My poor father was
a druggist, and we had a neat little home of our own. I was the only
child. Father and mother had married late in life, and they fairly
doted on me, and gave me all the advantages they could afford. Ah, how
good they were to me, and how poorly I repaid their love!” sighed the
unhappy and repentant girl.
“Poor Lena!” murmured Violet, tenderly, and, choking back a sob, the
girl continued:
“I was called very pretty, and I kept company with some very gay young
girls in my own class of life. We delighted in dressing in our best and
promenading on Pennsylvania avenue, where we were guilty of flirting in
a way that makes me bitterly ashamed now, for I realize too late that
no pure young girl who respects herself should stoop to court attention
and admiration from strangers. But I was giddy and thoughtless, my
companions the same, and thus I made the acquaintance of the man
who wrecked my life. He was handsome, as you know, and a few chance
meetings and stolen glances completed the conquest of my silly heart.
I permitted him to call on me at my home, and he told me that he lived
in Chicago, and if I made a visit to the great World’s Fair he would be
pleased to escort me through its wonders. He would return home in a
week and ardently wished I were going then, so that he might have the
pleasure of my company.
“To hasten over this unpleasant story, I begged my parents to take me
to the great fair, but they refused to do so, and desired me to put the
notion out of my head. They also disapproved of my fine new lover, and
bade me drop his acquaintance.
“Smarting with resentment, I told Harold everything. A few secret
meetings followed, then he persuaded me to elope with him. I agreed,
and we were married, as I thought, by a Methodist minister and left for
Chicago.
“Violet, I believe, before Heaven, that he loved me at first as much as
it is possible for such a nature to love. He gave me one week of the
wildest happiness. Some days we attended the Fair, on others we visited
the sights of the great city. He often called me wife, and the servants
in the hotel called me Mrs. Stanley, for that was the name I knew him
by at first. But as the days went by he seemed to weary of me. He
indulged in drink, and became coarse and brutal, declaring that he had
acted hastily in bringing me away with him. At last--why need I linger
over it?--he told me to go, that I was not his wife--never had been!
When I came to myself, having fallen in a faint at his cruel words, I
found myself deserted, with a purse of gold by my side, and a curt note
bidding me return to my parents.
“I retained my senses just long enough to have a telegram sent my
father to come for me, then I collapsed, and brain fever set in. My
father arrived, and from my raving gathered the terrible story of my
deception and desertion by Stanley, as he called himself.
“I shall never know how it all came about, perhaps, Violet, for it was
a mystery from beginning to end; but while I still lay on my sick-bed,
ill unto death, my poor father was found lifeless in a vile house in
the city--murdered, with a knife thrust in the heart. No evidence
was produced to prove who was his murderer, and to-day he lies in an
unavenged grave--my poor, poor father, who was so fond of his little
Lena.
“But, Violet, I have never doubted how my father came to his death.
He was no doubt on the track of my betrayer. He found him, and in
an altercation was murdered by the man I afterward found was Harold
Castello, a fast young man of Chicago. But I could not bring home his
guilt to him, although I have been on his track ever since my recovery.
But now all is different, dear, for you saw him commit the murder. You
can help me to bring it home to him.”