Laurel Vane; or, The Girls' Conspiracy

"I cannot understand you," he said. "I would give the world to have you back again, Laurel. I love you with the most faithful love the world ever knew. I shall never cease to lo...

Laurel felt a dreary kind of pleasure in hearing her husband ascribe to her the only real happiness of his life. It was some atonement for all that she had borne, all that she h...

Deep emotion overpowered Laurel's speech for a moment. Her lips parted as if to speak, but closed again without a sound. Her fair head drooped like a beautiful flower too heavil...

Laurel had left Belle Vue in a sudden panic of fear and dread. She was afraid that her bold denial of her identity would irritate the Le Roys into an attempt to prove their char...

A silence like death fell for a moment on the group that closed around that pathetic kneeling figure with its white uplifted face and streaming golden hair. St. Leon's voice bro...

It was sweet and clear as a chime of silver bells, but it pierced St. Leon Le Roy's heart like a sword-point. It thrilled and quivered through him, stirring him with a blended j...

Her beauty had inspired him with a passion that all her anger and scorn and detestation were powerless to chill. While he tried to hate her for her disdain, he could not help lo...

She was down on the shore with her little Laurence and his playmate, Trixy Wentworth. The little girl's mother had promised to join her presently. She and Mrs. Lynn had become q...

All the clocks of the great, thronged city clanged out the hour of midnight from their hoarse, brazen throats simultaneously, and as the last tremulous echo died away on the air...

St. Leon came home one afternoon and made his way straight to the library. The thickly carpeted floor gave back no echo to his footfalls, and he stood on the threshold of the ro...

The cheap, plain funeral was over, and the orphan sat alone in the deepening twilight in the shabby little room, now invested with a somber dignity all its own since the presenc...

Contrary to her usual habit, and to humor a caprice of Mrs. Wentworth's, Laurel decided to make her appearance in the hotel parlors that evening. Beatrix and her child were goin...

"I want that rose so much, I would take the world back there to the night When I saw it blush in the grass, to touch It once in that fair fall light; And only once if I might.

She had not thrown herself into the river, she had not fled with her lover. He had wronged her in his thoughts. She was here. Like a weary child she had flung herself down with...

He had not known how well he loved his mother until the dread of her loss hung over him. He had been sad and gloomy over the prospect of losing her. He was light-hearted and jub...

Indeed there seemed less chance of this catastrophe than at first. Laurel, with ready adaptability, was beginning to fit herself into her place. Under Clarice's constant tuition...

It was a long while before Laurel recovered her calmness. She had been severely shaken by her interview with Mr. Le Roy. She did not feel half so triumphant and victorious as sh...

Beatrix went swiftly to the pretty dressing-room, where the maid was, busy sewing on a dinner-dress of pink nuns' veiling for her beautiful young mistress. She sunk down upon a...

They went out together, and St. Leon watched them from the window, appearing and disappearing among the winding walks, the girl's white figure bending here and there among the g...

The brilliant writer looked very elegant and distinguished in her dress of soft, rich black silk and lace. A dainty bonnet of black lace and gleaming jet rested on the dark gold...

St. Leon Le Roy--what had brought him here at this moment of all others? What strange trick did fate mean to play her in thus surrounding her all in a moment, as it were, with t...

"Miss Vane, I do not think you understand," she said; "your probation here is over. We do not need to keep up this wretched farce any longer. Mr. Wentworth has secured his fine...

It was a beautiful room where he lay, but the invalid took no pleasure in it. It was large and lofty, with a lovely painted ceiling, and the walls were hung in beautiful draperi...

Mlle. Marie was very glad to get away from attendance on her mistress for a few hours. There is nothing happens in the parlor, but is immediately communicated to the kitchen, so...

Mr. Le Roy led his beautiful guest to the library, and placed a chair beside the table where he usually sat to read. Laurel sat silently a moment with averted face. She was figh...

After a little she dragged herself up wearily, and went back to the drawing-room. The young count brightened visibly at her appearance. Mrs. Le Roy told her that she had stayed...

"I loved him, Mrs. Wentworth. That is all my defense. Call me weak, cowardly, wicked, if you will; but I could not put the temptation from me. Think what all my life had been--h...

All of the young bride's happiness began to wane from that hour. The shadow of the nearing future began to fall upon her heart. The "coming events cast their shadows before."

In June she had come to the Le Roys, a trembling, frightened, innocent little impostor, lending herself to a fraud for Beatrix Gordon's sake. From a most unwelcome intruder, who...

If Laurel Vane was thunderstruck at the unexpected sight of the villain who had so deeply insulted her helpless innocence in New York, Ross Powell on the other hand was delighte...

The wife of the wealthy publisher was a pale, faded, pretty woman, once a belle and beauty, now a chronic invalid. She mingled but little in society, on account of her delicate...

"She was a dear, good, honest child," she said. "I had hard work to persuade her to personate me for a little while. Her exaggerated notion of gratitude was all that tipped the...

Full of wonder and pity and sympathy, they lifted the golden head from Le Roy's breast, and bore her away. No one dreamed that he had given his life to save hers. No one dreamed...

Laurel drew back on the threshold, fearful of interrupting the singer, but Mrs. Le Roy had already perceived her, and came forward with considerable _empressement_ to draw her i...

Mr. Le Roy, turning in the same moment with his wife, saw two faces that he recognized--Cyril Wentworth's that he had seen once in New York, and Clarice's, which he remembered p...

Carlyle Ford went up to the beautiful woman and took her cold trembling hands gently in his. She was as pale as death, and she shivered as if an icy wave had broken over her.

In five weeks after that tragedy at the seashore Laurel announced her intention of returning to Belle Vue. She had convalesced very rapidly, and the bloom and beauty of health w...

He stood there in silence, looking down at that bowed head, veiled by its sweeping golden hair. He made no effort to raise her; he answered not a word to her wild appeal. There...

Beatrix did not know how to refuse the mother's prayer. She knew that Laurel's heart was yearning for the child, and she did not really think that it would do her any injury to...

St. Leon Le Roy and his mother had a very quiet drive homeward. Both were busy with their own thoughts. The lady leaned back against the cushions of the phaeton with closed eyes...

Laurel went slowly into the house and was received with joy by Mrs. Le Roy and Clarice. She was touched when the proud, stately lady kissed her warmly on the lips, and when she...

St. Leon lifted his mother's senseless form, and bore her away to her room. Mrs. Gordon lay weeping, moaning, and wildly lamenting in her husband's arms. Ross Powell, having acc...

St. Leon Le Roy threw himself down on the green turf at Mrs. Lynn's feet, and resting his arm on his wife's grave, leaned his head in his hand. So resting he could look up and n...

It was a beautiful, picturesque structure with graceful towers, projecting oriel windows, charming balconies, and marble steps that led down into spacious grounds so beautifully...

The curiosity of the pretty, faded widow, Mrs. Merivale, had been aroused by the first sight of Mrs. Lynn. She spared no pains until she obtained an introduction to the noted wr...

Beatrix Gordon looked at the beautiful river with wide, dark eyes. The summer sunshine gilded the blue waves, the white sails dotted its wide expanse like fairy shallops gliding...

This book is a complete guide for both ladies and gentlemen in elegant and fashionable letter-writing: containing perfect examples of every form of correspondence, business lett...

Mrs. Lynn was struck dumb for an instant by the suddenness and passion of her husband's accusation. She grew ghastly pale--she trembled like a wind-blown leaf, the denial she wo...

Alone and without references, Laurel did not find it easy to secure respectable lodgings in the city. She thought of returning to the house where she had lived with her father,...

Ill news flies apace. It was not long before Beatrix Wentworth, leisurely reading her New York paper in London, came upon the story of that tragedy on the beautiful Hudson--read...

A sixteen year old girl was wavering on the threshold, staring into the elegant room and at the cold, curious faces of the mother and son with parted lips, and large, somber, fr...

Mr. Le Roy and Laurel had indeed gone out upon the shore. He had invited her to do so, and she had complied, for she was full of half-angry wonder as to what had brought him the...

She desired that her angry, unforgiving husband should believe that she was dead. Since he had deliberately planned to put her out of his life forever, he would, no doubt, be gl...

They were crossing the wide Atlantic Ocean, and every one said that there never had been finer weather or a pleasanter trip. They had no rough winds the whole voyage. The calm,...

Yet she had never felt its shadow less than she did that day. She gave herself up blindly to her happiness, prizing it all the more because she knew it could not last. When she...

Mrs. Gordon was not sorry that her daughter had preferred to stay at Eden in preference to accompanying her upon her Southern tour. It augured well for the success of the trembl...

"Home! home!" she burst out, in a voice that was like a wail of despair, then suddenly flinging her arms about his neck, she broke into tempestuous sobbing as if the very depths...

"No, it is not late--at least, not midnight. Surely you can spare me a few minutes, Miss Gordon. I wish very much to speak to you," he said, almost gravely.

When they went to England, Laurel wondered a little tearfully if they should meet the Wentworths. She knew that they were in London, and the thought of coming upon them was not...

It was a supreme moment. Laurel felt it to be such. Her heart beat, her limbs trembled beneath her. But for the support of St. Leon's arm she must have fallen to the earth. She...

"You have died for me!" the stricken wife repeated, and then, overcome with horror, she knelt down beside the dead man, and with her arms about him, and her head upon his breast...

To-morrow came--one of the fairest of summer days, with a sea-blue sky and the goldenest sunshine and most fragrant flowers. Laurel prepared for her drive with Mr. Le Roy with a...

Little thrills of icy coldness shot along Laurel's tingling nerves. She remembered his cold, proud bearing to her, as contrasted with his winning and tender demeanor to Maud Mer...

"Yes, I am better, thanks to the goodness of Clarice and her mistress," she faltered. "You must thank them for their kindness to me, St. Leon, and take me away."

In the meantime Ross Powell with his mind full of his rencounter with Laurel, and his passions all aflame with love and hate commingled, wended his way to the stately home of th...

Mlle. Marie hovered around her mistress with many delicate attentions after her master had departed, but her ministrations were not crowned with much success. Laurel lay still a...

In the private parlor of a neat hotel in a city not very far from New York, the true Beatrix Gordon was sitting one lovely morning awaiting the coming of her husband.

Clarice had barely gone a week, when one evening Mrs. Le Roy came sailing into the dressing-room, whither Laurel had gone to dress for dinner, but was dreaming instead at the op...

Laurel was fortunate enough to get back to her hotel before Mr. Le Roy returned from his engagement with the friend whom he had unexpectedly encountered in London. She removed h...

"Oh, ma'am, I do not think I have missed a single spot," cried Clarice, wringing her hands. "I have been all over Eden. I have been out into the road, and along the river bank....

Page 29, changed "flowes" to "flowers" in "nothing but these flowers." Changed "truf" to "turf" in "cool, green turf." Added missing "St." in "ever came here except St. Leon Le...