A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

They had reached an open piece of moorland, where the shadows of the tall trees danced on the grass, and great sheets of bluebells contrasted with starry primroses. There was a...

Standing in the solitary splendor of her room, Doris looked round her with despairing eyes. Was it possible that this sin, of which she had thought so little, would be the means...

Lord Charles Vivianne had been completely spoiled by good fortune. An only son, he had succeeded quite early to a magnificent estate, a large fortune, and an ancient title. As a...

"We ought to be very much flattered," said Lord Linleigh, with a smile, as he laid an open letter before his wife. "When did we leave London?--in June. It is only the middle of...

Earle was not the only one who found Doris changed. She had hastened home from that interview almost wild with excitement. Could it be that the wildest dream of her life was rea...

Then Earle drew nearer, and a more terrible fear came over him. There were troubles worse than death! Surely not for him. Great drops stood on his brow, the veins in his hands s...

The atmosphere seemed clearer to Lady Doris Studleigh when the kindly farmer and his wife were gone; she wanted nothing to remind her of what she chose to call that miserable pe...

Lady Estelle and Doris went together through the beautiful conservatories that formed one of the great attractions of the Castle, and Doris fancied herself in fairyland. She sho...

"You thought to deceive me," he said, and the breath came like hot flame from his lips. "You thought to blind and dupe me, but I know you now--I have known you all along, though...

"My demands are few, Lady Studleigh. You are to be married to-morrow to Earle Moray, according to _your_ arrangement; according to _mine_, nothing of the sort will happen, but y...

Earle wondered much what had happened to change his lady-love so completely. Looking back, he found that she had never been quite the same since the day she went to the Castle....

"I hope not," he said. "Of course I will respect your wishes, and keep the most perfect silence. At the same time, I think you are rather imprudent; and any one, seeing such a v...

"I come now to a part of my story," resumed Lady Estelle, "that I would fain pass over in silence; but as it touches the matter that brought me here, I am obliged to tell you."

Although it was summer there was a bright little fire in the silver grate, the lamps were lighted, but lowered, so that the room was filled with a soft light; the hangings of ri...

A group of young aristocrats stood in the billiard-room of Bar's Club. Some one had played a game and won it, some one else had lost; there had been high betting, but, strange t...

Two years after the birth of his son, the earl and countess went to London for the season. It so happened that the desire for a picture he had seen led him to the studio of Greg...

"That is the first part of your declaration," said Lady Doris, with the calm of infinite contempt; "if I will promise to be your wife, you will promise to marry me. What if I re...

"Do I weary you, Earle Moray, with these details?" Lady Estelle asked, looking with wistful eyes into his face. "Out of my thirty-eight years, that was my only gleam of light--d...

Earle Moray was dreadfully puzzled. Into the threads of his life a mighty, passionate, wonderful love had been woven, but there had been nothing of mystery. It had been a beauti...

Such a beautiful morning! The golden sunbeams falling like blessings on the earth; the birds singing in a delirium of happiness. The sweet, warm air brooding over the fragrant f...

Lord Linleigh rushed from the room like one mad--he was utterly lost. That his beautiful daughter, who was to have been married that day, lay there murdered and dead, was an ide...

That was surely the most silent and somber dinner-party ever held at the Castle. The four who sat down to the table owned to themselves that it was a terrible mistake--they ough...

A few days afterward the Earl of Linleigh, with his daughter, went to London. He had decided not to go to his own house, which was one of the most beautiful mansions in Hyde Par...

The eighth of August! When had any day so beautiful shone before? It was as though the birds had woke earlier to sing. How the sun was shining and the flowers blooming! Lady Dor...

Lord Vivianne!--there was no mistake. The moon shone full in his face; she knew the impatient walk; she knew every line of his figure, and for one moment her heart almost stoppe...

The appointment was secured. It was hardly probable that the Earl of Linleigh should ask anything from the government and be refused. He was the rising man of the day, and the g...

The Duke and Duchess of Downsbury had been so long absent from their home, that on their return they felt the greatest pleasure and keenest interest in every one whose name they...

Dinner was over, and Earle had recovered some little sense and reason. He had hardly looked at Lady Estelle. They had met as perfect strangers, and the earl introduced them.

"I am bound to believe you," he said, "although my faith in you has been terribly shaken. I ask you because I heard that you passed here as a married lady. Is that true?"

Three days later they were once more at Linleigh Court. The earl would hear of no opposition; he ruthlessly broke all engagements, sacrificed all interest and pleasure; his daug...

"I feel very much," thought Earle, "as though I had been dreaming in one of the fairy circles. That proud, fair woman with such a story; and she Doris' mother. Doris, my golden-...

Two hours had passed; it was the full glowing noon now of the summer day. The sun shone so brightly and warmly it was difficult to bear its rays; the air was faint with the rich...

She had two plans before her. One was to wait for Lord Charles and tell him all--to trust to his generosity to keep their secret. Then she laughed bitterly as she repeated the w...

"I call this a coincidence," said Gregory Leslie, as the studio door opened and a gentleman entered--"a strange coincidence. If I had read it in a novel I should not have believ...

Such a May day! like one of those that the poets of old described when they wrote of mead and honey. A flash of heaven's own sunshine, a murmur of heaven's own music, a foretast...

"Good-night, Earle," said Lord Linleigh; "now that is really the last time. You shall not draw me into another discussion. I will not say another word. Remember you are to be ma...

The Earl of Linleigh seemed to be indifferent as to the terms on which he obtained his pardon, provided only that he did obtain it. His thanks and gratitude were pleasing to hea...

The Countess of Linleigh sat anxiously watching the fair face of Lady Doris. All was going on well at Linleigh. The gentle, stately countess was already half worshiped there. Th...

The morning that followed was beautiful. The Lady Doris felt more cheerful than she had done for many long days. Earle would manage it all for her; she should find a way out of...

"'I cannot bear it,' said my lover to me," continued Lady Estelle, "when we met the next day on the green lawn at Twickenham. 'We Studleighs are just as mad in jealousy as we ar...

It was a busy morning at Downsbury Castle. Several visitors had called, and when Mark, with his beautiful _protegee_, arrived, they were shown into the library to await the duke...

Earle walked like one dizzy from a great blow; the silent, pitiful stars, with their great golden eyes, shone down from the depths of the blue sky; the night wind seemed to hush...

"I will drive my pretty ponies," said Doris, eagerly. "I have only used them once since papa gave them to me. She will be so pleased if I meet her."

Looking at Lady Estelle, Earle saw that her face had grown very pale, and her hands trembled. It was so strange for him, on this beautiful, sunlit morning, to find himself seate...

A few days after the events described in the previous chapter, a paragraph went round the principal English newspapers which created some little sensation. It was headed "Romanc...

One moment, only one, she kept her fair face in the fragrant blossoms--one moment, to taste, perhaps for the last time, the sweet draught of love--one moment, in which to curse...

The evening was over at last, and to Doris it had been the happiest day, perhaps, of her life. Lord Linleigh had sent to his cellars for some of his choicest wines--wines that o...

He little imagined that she was reveling in the disappointment Lord Vivianne would feel; and she had enough of the woman in her to rejoice in his pain, and to feel pleased that...

Mattie Brace stood at the farm gate: she was looking impatiently up and down the road, and a sudden light flashed in her face as she caught sight of Doris. The beautiful face se...

"Shall you go to the opera to-night, Doris?" asked the countess, as they lingered over a cup of chocolate. "I think--do not imagine I am over anxious--I think you require a litt...

It was no wonder that when she reached Hyde House again Lady Studleigh should look ill and exhausted; she had passed through a severe ordeal, and no one but herself knew what it...

The funeral at Linleigh Court is still talked of in the county. There had not been for many generations such a scene. The whole country side were present; the rich and the noble...

"If I may take the liberty," said Lord Vivianne, turning with his most amiable smile to Mrs. Brace, "I should so much like to ask for a cup of tea. I was anxious to see your dau...

The same wind that wailed so mournfully round the farm made sad music round the Castle walls. Lady Estelle shuddered as she listened to it; it seemed so full of prophecy, and th...

"I was a coward," he said, "for the second time in my life. I was afraid to look at her; now I do not see how I can look anywhere else. How am I to thank you? You have brought m...

It did not occur to Lady Doris that in all probability Lord Vivianne would recognize Earle. He had seen him once, and once only--that was walking with her, near Brackenside. But...

"It will be a fine moonlight night," said honest Mark Brace. "If this weather lasts, Patty, we shall have a good balance in the bank by the end of the year."

But though she indignantly denied the fact as being a very discreditable one, she looked pale, and the laughing eyes had lost something of their brightness. She started at every...

The tenants' dinner was a great success. It was well attended, for all were anxious to show that they appreciated and returned the duke's kindly feeling. To Mark it was a dream...

"You are not frightened at Earle, nor any one else, while you are with me, Dora?" He preferred this name to Doris, and the fanciful change pleased her greatly. "You need not be...

Notwithstanding all the kindness and hospitality that the earl had shown to Mark, it was some relief to the farmer to know that when morning dawned he was that day to return hom...

Linleigh Court stands on the southern coast, where the southern sea kisses the shores, and the fertile lands yield sweetest fruits and flowers. It has not the stamp of antiquity...

They wondered why Lord Linleigh allowed no one to take the fatal news to his wife but himself. The secret of her early ill-starred love and marriage had been so well kept all th...

"It would require a poet to tell us," said the countess; "and as we have one close at hand, we will ask him. Mattie, go and bring Earle here. Close the door after you. I should...

"Mark! Mark! it is a child, a poor forsaken baby," said Patty, stooping down and gathering into her womanly arms the weeping waif-fragment of the seething sea of humanity so str...

Mark and Patty Brace sat down again by their hearth-stone. They were too much excited to think of sleep. Mark made up the fire and trimmed the lamp, and ruddy glow and golden gl...

"But why not? On this wild, stormy night, when other little ones may be out in the dashing rain and moaning wind, is it not right to pray, 'God bless our home?'"

The great world did own itself to be surprised--not angry, nor shocked, nor even vexed or offended, but surprised. It had not taken newspaper rumors for gospel truth. It had pri...

"I saw you dancing with the gentleman who admired you so greatly the other evening," he replied. "You seemed so interested in his conversation that I never dreamed you would mis...

There was no part of the day that the Duke of Downsbury enjoyed so much as the breakfast hour, when his beautiful daughter and his aristocratic wife amused themselves by the dis...

The morrow came, but there was no hesitation on the part of Doris. Perhaps Lord Vivianne could not have done a better thing for himself than giving her that diamond ring; the li...

Rose the sun over an idyllic day; the white clouds floated softly over the summer blue; the poppies blazed in scarlet splendor through the grass; the bearded barley stood in she...

"For some had perished in her stern neglect-- Fell on the sword of their own hope and died; While she in triumph, scornfully erect, Swept o'er their ashes with the skirts of pri...

While Earle Moray watched Doris, and lost himself in delicious fancies of a soul fair as the body that shrined it, Doris, on her part, gazed on him with awakening interest. She...

"The night is so fine," said the earl, "you young people would enjoy a short time on the lawn. Look at those lilies asleep in the moonlight--go and wake them. Then we will have...

Summer day glided silently after summer day, and at Brackenside Farm Earle Moray was re-telling for himself the story of Eden--the love of one man for one woman, to him the only...

Gregory Leslie, seated before his easel, saw the young couple returning to the house. No need to tell him what had happened. The triumphant lover was in every line of Earle's fa...

It was the good custom of Mark Brace to close the day with prayer; and sometimes a word or two of the psalms for the day penetrated the sedulously deaf ears of Doris.

"Yes. Doris is not my daughter. She was left, being two months old or thereabouts, on my door-step, with a letter and a hundred pounds. Here is the letter for you to read. I hav...

Despite all the love eagerly made by Earle, and readily accepted by Doris, there was no formal engagement. A hundred times the decisive words trembled on the lips of the poet-lo...

Gregory Leslie was too astute a man, too experienced, to take his wandering naiad at her word, and paint her picture, asking no consent but her own. Never had a girl so puzzled...

Mark Brace was the tenant of the Duke of Downsbury, as his fathers before him had for many generations been the tenants of the duke's ancestors; yet no two lines of life seemed...

"Possibly my early self was a great simpleton, mamma, and as for animation, most girls are overdoing that. Calmness, what you call indifference, may be my style. Don't you think...

Meanwhile, at the farm little Doris grew under the protection of Mark and Patty, and yearly, as the day came round which was the anniversary of her arrival, Mark received a hund...

The duke placed a shining gold sovereign in the hand of Doris, and another in the hand of the quiet Mattie. The duchess looked at the honest, healthy, pleasant face of little Ma...

Five years had passed since the occurrence of the events recorded in the preceding chapter. Lord Vivianne's place was filled, his name forgotten; flowers bloomed fair and fragra...

all self. I never liked you. And now, when I could be happy--ah, Heaven, so unutterably happy--you come like a black shadow and rob my life of every bit of happiness that it con...

"That is certainly all fancy," replied Doris. "I have only seen her twice in my life; it is not possible she can love me. Perhaps she thought I was not so bad-looking--she admir...