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
A DREADFUL TEMPTATION
BY
MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER
AUTHOR OF "QUEENIE'S TERRIBLE SECRET," "JAQUELINA," ETC.
NEW YORK
INTERNATIONAL BOOK COMPANY
3, 4, 5 AND 6-MISSION PLACE
COPYRIGHT, 1883,
BY
NORMAN L. MUNRO
[_All rights reserved._]
A DREADFUL TEMPTATION;
OR,
_A Young Wife's Ambition_.
By MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER.
CHAPTER I.
"Hear the mellow wedding-bells--
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness
Their melody foretells!"
"Hark! there's the wedding-march."
"Here they come!"
"Looks as white as a corpse, doesn't she?"
"Oh, no; as beautiful as a dream, to my notion. Pallor is becoming in
brides, you know."
"He's a silly old dotard, though, not to know that she's taking him for
his money."
"Of course he knows it. I dare say the old gray-beard is glad he had
money enough to buy so much youth and loveliness."
"What a splendid veil and dress! They say her rich aunt furnished the
_trousseau_."
"Her jewels are magnificent."
"The bridegroom's gift, of course. Well, he is able to cover her with
diamonds."
These were but few of the remarks that were whispered in the fashionable
throng gathered at Trinity to witness a marriage in high life--a
marriage that was all the more interesting from the fact that the
contracting parties were so totally dissimilar to each other that the
whole affair in the eyes of the outsiders resolved itself into a simple
matter of bargain and sale--so much youth and beauty for an old man's
gold.
The bridegroom was John St. John, a millionaire of high birth and
standing in the city where he lived, but so old and infirm that people
said of him that "he had one foot in the grave and the other on the
brink of it," and the bride was the young daughter of some obscure
country people.
An aunt in the city had given her some advantages, and kept her in town
two seasons, hoping to bring about a good match for her, since she had
no dowry of her own, save youth, talent and peerless beauty.
"And what is your fortune, my pretty maid?"
"My face is my fortune, sir," she said.
And Xenie Carroll was fulfilling her aunt's ambitious hopes and desires
to their uttermost limit as she walked up the broad aisle of Trinity
that night, clothed in her bridal white, and leaning on the arm of the
decrepit old millionaire, John St. John.
His form was bent with age, his hair and beard were white, his eyes were
dim and bleared; and she was in the bloom of youth and beauty. It was
the union of winter and summer.
They passed slowly up the aisle to the grand music of the wedding-march,
and after them came fair maidens, robed in white and adorned with
flowers and jewels.
These stood round about the pair at the altar who were taking upon their
lips the sacred vow of marriage.
It was over.
The holy man of God lifted reverent hands and invoked God's blessing
upon this sordid bargain that desecrated the holy rite of marriage, the
ring was slipped over the bride's white finger, and Xenie Carroll turned
away from the altar Mrs. John St. John, mistress of the handsomest house
in the city and the most princely private fortune.
There was a flash of triumph in her dark eyes as she received the
congratulations of her friends, yet her cheeks and lips were cold and
white as marble.
But the light and color came back to her beautiful face when, in the
same carriage that had taken her from her aunt's roof a poor, dependent
girl, she was whirled back to the millionaire's splendid home to take
her place as its queen.
The aged bridegroom scarcely felt equal to an extended bridal tour, so
he had wisely eschewed a trip, and determined to inaugurate the reign of
the new social star by a brilliant reception at his splendid residence.
All the beauties of art and nature were called in to further his design.
The elegant drawing-rooms were almost transformed into bowers of
tropical bloom.
Beautiful birds fluttered their tropical plumage and caroled their sweet
songs in the gilded cages that swung in the flowery arches and niches.
Music filled the air with entrancing strains, wooing light feet to the
giddy dance.
In the spacious supper-room the tables shone with silver and gold and
crystal, and every delicacy that could tempt the appetite from home or
foreign shores was daintily served for the wedding-guests, with wines of
the purest vintage and greatest age.
There was no lack of wealth, there was no lack of beauty in the
brilliant assemblage that graced the millionaire's proud house that
night; and she, his bride, was now the wealthiest, as she had ever been
the loveliest, of them all, yet she stole away at length from her aged
bridegroom's flatteries, and sought the solitude of the conservatory.