A bitter reckoning;

Rosamond Arleigh read the telegram over and over--once, twice, thrice, and her face grew pale as death, while into her dark eyes there crept a look of desperation. She glanced a...

There was a brief pause, a silence during which you could hear distinctly the great strangling heart-throbs of the woman who stood staring blankly into the face of her unwelcome...

That lady had fallen helplessly upon a sofa, and was weeping hysterically, wringing her white hands in uncontrollable grief. The shriek which had resounded through the house, te...

Tall, dark, saturnine, he was not a pleasant person to look at as he came to a halt upon the rug before the fireless grate and stood staring into her frightened face with eyes f...

Leonard Yorke threw open the door of the library and rushed into the room, Hilda following closely. His eyes fell at once upon the huddled heap upon the floor. A moment later he...

Pale and trembling with excitement, Violet knelt at the side of the body, her eyes fastened with burning intensity upon the white, still face. Had she deceived herself, or did s...

the eminent New Orleans detective. Mrs. Rutledge must be told in the morning--I will be back here to do it--that on account of decomposition the body must not be exposed. I thin...

Rosamond Arleigh opened her eyes. It was as still as death within the room which had been prepared to receive her body. The mirrors were draped in white; there were bouquets of...

When Leonard Yorke reached home after the tragic occurrence at The Oaks, he was met in the hall by Jessie Glyndon. She was very pale, and her eyes bore the traces of recent weep...

Doctor Danton’s carriage dashed away like mad, and the man on the box smiled grimly to himself as he guided the spirited horses onward down the long, white country road which le...

The steep bank of sandy earth gave way and precipitated Rosamond Arleigh downward--down, down! She closed her eyes and gave herself up for lost. On, on she went, until at last s...

Morning dawned over The Oaks--a fair, smiling April morning--but the smiles turned into tears long before noon, and the green face of the earth was drenched with the downpour fr...

The poor girl listened to the story with a heart crushed and aching. She had hoped so much when she had discovered that her mother was still living; and now, to find that her fa...

For a moment Violet’s heart stood still, then began to beat eighteen to the dozen. She pressed her cold, shaking hand upon it, as though with a hope of quieting its tumult; then...

“Do not imagine for one moment that I _care_ for you,” he said, harshly. “I have never loved any woman in all my life save your mother, and she scorned me. Listen, Violet, while...

The cold, dark water closed swiftly over her, and she sunk for a moment out of sight; then she rose to the surface, and with numbed hands clutched wildly at the nearest object,...

“Lawd ha’ marcy!” he ejaculated, scratching his woolly head in blank perplexity. “Dat ’ar ’ooman sho’ly is a quare ’un! Done got a lick side de head ’nuff to knock over a mule!...

Leonard Yorke rode away from The Oaks with a heart full of angry resentment. So, Captain Venners was coming to call upon Violet that evening. Violet was evidently deeply interes...

Violet started, and Will dropped her hand as though it were a live coal, as Leonard entered the room with a slight greeting, and began at once to converse with Mrs. Rutledge, wh...

“Dear Miss Arleigh--You and yours have been cruelly wronged. If you would avenge your mother and gain possession of your own rights, visit the east chamber at Yorke Towers and s...

“Violet Arleigh,” she began in a low tone, when the girl had come to the bedside and paused awaiting her pleasure, “I invited you here to Yorke Towers for a purpose. I have neve...

For a moment Violet stood irresolute. It seemed wrong for her to obey the instructions of Mrs. Yorke’s servant and visit the mysterious chamber all alone; but then she knew that...

Violet was so overcome with terror and surprise, and so nervous and overwrought, that for a time she could only stand there, Will’s arms about her, his face, pale and startled,...

Silence! The moonlight, glinting down through the magnolia boughs, showed two still figures standing there like statues. Jessie’s eyes were fixed upon the ground; her graceful f...

Violet stood transfixed with horror as these strange words reached her ears. What did they mean? How came Gilbert Warrington here, and upon such apparently confidential terms wi...

Violet felt herself borne rapidly away in the strong arms which held her; away, she knew not whither. It was melodramatic; it was like a scene from a sensational novel; but this...

She had been standing at the bedside of her mistress--Miss Arleigh was present also--and Betty was about to administer Mrs. Yorke’s sleeping-draught at her request, when all at...

All Gilbert Warrington’s speeches were apparently wasted upon Violet’s ears. She stood leaning against the trunk of the tree listening in stolid silence to his words. She knew t...

It seemed the very height of absurdity. In this enlightened age it was not probable that a young woman could be carried forcibly away from home and friends and be immured in a l...

Half wild with jealous wrath, and nearly heart-broken, for he had loved her well, Leonard Yorke rode like a madman back to Yorke Towers, back to his mother to break the shameful...

“Gilbert Warrington,” she cried, in a clear, ringing voice, which was full of scorn and detestation, “I demand that you procure my freedom from this place! Let me go free, or it...

For a moment Violet could scarcely believe the evidence of her own senses. Could it be Dunbar, or was it only a fancy, a freak of the imagination conjured up from the depths of...

Violet shrunk back with an involuntary cry at sight of the man whom she hated, and who had come to her now to lead her forth to that hateful farce of a marriage, from the very t...

Half dazed with the strange occurrences of the day, Leonard Yorke rode like a madman back to Yorke Towers to procure assistance and bring poor Will Venners to its hospitable she...

Dunbar led Violet out of the room and the house, out through the tall iron gate, which closed with a loud clang behind them, and into the waiting carriage which stood there.

For a time Violet stood like one bereft of her senses. Her brain was in a whirl, her heart throbbed painfully; she was overcome by emotion, and the strange, wild joy of this mee...

When Leonard Yorke seized the old woman in his strong grasp she flashed about, uttering a mad cry of rage and despair. One glance into the young man’s white, stern face and flas...