Her Dark Inheritance

The voice was low and eager. The girl to whom the voice belonged paused before the dingy counter of the country store and post-office combined, and stood patiently waiting. The...

Yes, he was Serena Lynne's betrothed husband, and bound in honor to make her his wife. The sharp remembrance cut him to the heart like a sword. He fell back with a cry of anguis...

"I wonder what keeps Beatrix so late? I am getting very uneasy about her. It is after dark, and snowing hard. I am very anxious, and besides I've been thinking of the bridge ove...

The days came and went with slow, monotonous round in the old brown, weather-beaten house where Keith Kenyon lay ill unto death. Mrs. Lynne scarcely left his bedside. She was a...

Silence--awful silence! Beatrix could hear her own heart beat as she stood there alone in the silence and darkness of her own chamber, the hand that wears Keith Kenyon's wedding...

The ominous cry rang forth through the silence of the night, and instantly there was a response. Close to Beatrix's side a slight form glided swiftly through the thick black smo...

Cold and still in death, Frederick Lynne sat in his big arm-chair, one icy hand clutching the letter which bade Beatrix face an unknown and dreaded future--face it all alone. Mr...

Beatrix rose from her seat at her husband's side and left the room in obedience to Doctor Darrow. Entering the ward where Mrs. Ray was lying, she went to the bedside and seated...

For a moment it seemed to Beatrix that she could not have heard aright. Her brain was giddy, her breath came fluttering feebly--she looked as if she was going to swoon.

That night Beatrix dreamed a strange dream. She thought that she was alone in the mysterious round room in the western tower, gazing upon a portrait which hung upon the wall--th...

For a moment Keith Kenyon was so astonished, so utterly overwhelmed with amazement, that he could not find words to utter. Could it be true? Was it not an optical delusion? Sure...

For the first time in her life Serena Lynne was triumphant with the knowledge of a victory won. She had begun to despair; the prospect of ever winning Keith Kenyon had been grow...

In a spacious chamber of a great, gloomy mansion, an old man sat alone, his gray head bowed upon his trembling hands, which rested upon a cane. A few blocks away the hum and tra...

If ever a man lived in the world with a broken heart, Keith Kenyon was the man. He was utterly prostrated; life seemed at an end to him; he had no hope, no ambition. The woman h...

Out in the cold starry night Beatrix was riding swiftly on to the little town of Burtonville--a small settlement which lay some three miles beyond the home of the Lynnes. It was...

They were very busy that day in the ward of hopeless cases. Beatrix had not had a moment to rest. All day long the tired little feet were running here and there in obedience to...

The promise was readily given, for with Keith's dark eyes gazing into her own with that eager, earnest gaze, Beatrix could not have refused, even if she had so desired. And she...

Life had seemed strange to Beatrix in that gloomy mansion in the Crescent City. From the night of her arrival she had scarcely seen old Bernard Dane--a circumstance which she co...

A night of storm and tempest, the wind blowing a perfect gale; and above its mad shrieking the sullen roar of the ocean, as it beat against the shore in angry vehemence, recoili...

As Serena's announcement was made, and the words fell upon the silence with a clear note of triumph pealing through her voice, Beatrix fell back faint and stunned. She realized...

For a moment Serena Lynne stood glaring down upon Beatrix with eyes full of blank astonishment, which Beatrix returned with interest. It was so strange, so sudden, so unexpected...

Beatrix stood staring blankly into the old man's excited face, with a strange feeling of sickening terror creeping over her heart. Was he mad? In Heaven's name, what did he mean...

The moments came and went, and still that slight figure lay upon the hospital steps, the small face as white and rigid as though she were dead. It was very early, and the old ph...

Alone in her room that night, Beatrix sat down at the open window to think over the new life so soon to be unfolded to her. Keith Kenyon's wife! No position in the world could b...

A crowd gathered in a moment to the scene of the disaster. Poor Celia's bruised and bleeding body was lifted from the ground and borne into a neighboring drug store. Here she wa...

"But that does not prove that Beatrix is exempt from the curse entailed upon her," she said, coarsely. "I consider her unfit to associate with other people until the exact truth...

Keith awoke the next morning with a strange feeling of peace and quiet in his heart--a sensation as though he had anchored at last, and all his life would henceforth lie through...

Once decided in his course, old Bernard Dane was not the man to turn back, or to express regret for what he had done. The die was cast. He had asked Serena Lynne to be his wife,...

Hours passed before Beatrix Dane returned to consciousness and a realization of the truth. She lifted her head and sat staring into the darkness, trying to comprehend this awful...

"Come in!" cried a harsh voice; and Beatrix pushed the door open and entered the room. Bernard Dane was standing before a window, gazing out into the grounds, his wrinkled face...

Beatrix felt a strange sensation as she stood alone at the midnight hour beside the dead woman. It was not terror, it was not the natural and instinctive shrinking from death--d...

Pale and dazed, Beatrix gazed into the young physician's face. Could it be possible? Were his words true? Was there a hope that she might, after all escape the dreadful scourge,...

Two or three days dragged by. They seemed to poor old Bernard Dane, lying upon his bed of suffering, to really drag, they were so long and uneventful. Every morning the first qu...

In a white bed in a darkened room at the institution to which Sister Angela belonged, poor Beatrix lay moaning and tossing in pain. For she was stricken down with brain fever, a...

"Offered herself? Yes, I suppose that is about the case. All the same, I should think that you would have kept the promise you made me, since that was all the atonement you coul...

During his illness Beatrix had kept to her own room as much as possible, never voluntarily entering the presence of the old man, whom she feared as a madman. His wild dark eyes...

But at that moment Mrs. Lynne made her appearance, and then Bernard Dane withdrew. There was a perplexed expression upon his face, and as he went slowly back to the library he m...