Little sweetheart

The smoking-car was draughty and ill-smelling; the three commercial travelers, with their cards and whisky, noisy to the point of rudeness, and the view from the windows of the...

Sweetheart herself remained quite silent and pensive for a moment after her little song, as if it had touched some chord of sadness in her heart. Then she nestled her curly head...

Before the gates of a palatial home, whose white walls glimmered like a fairy palace through the dark-green shrubberies of the extensive grounds, stood a line of carriages. The...

Norman de Vere was by no means unacquainted with the passionate and jealous temper of his wife, having experienced its evil effects many times during the two years in which he h...

“I hope you are well, mother?” the young man said, kissing her tenderly, and as the light fell on her face one saw features still handsome in spite of the silver hair that set o...

Mrs. de Vere had half risen from the luxurious nest of linen and lace, and with her wavy red locks falling backward like a veil, was leaning on her white elbow listening eagerly.

Clever Finette found out long before she was summoned to dress her mistress next morning that a reconciliation had most probably taken place between the young husband and his je...

The entrance of a servant with breakfast hindered further conversation. They took their places, and Mrs. de Vere poured her husband’s coffee. She saw him glance inquiringly at h...

Mrs. de Vere was looking stately and beautiful as usual in a costume of trailing dead-white silk, with a necklace of pearls. The trying costume was relieved by the warm hue of h...

The guests were beginning to take leave. Already their gay farewells floated out upon the air of the night where Norman de Vere had been walking alone since the detective had le...

Norman de Vere did not dream of the depths of duplicity hidden in his wife’s nature. He believed that she was honest in the repentance she professed, and accordingly he had Litt...

The gay season was just beginning at the fashionable hotel where the De Veres had taken rooms, and Norman’s wife proved a great acquisition to the social circle. Scores of North...

Days passed, and no matter how angry it made the young girls at the hotel, no one could deny that Lord Stuart admired the married coquette more than any of the others. He was al...

While that terrible scene was transpiring by the river, Norman de Vere was sitting quietly in his mother’s room with pretty Little Sweetheart on his knee, talking to her of the...

Norman gave his arm to his beautiful wife, and she went with him to the elegant dining-room, where they dined _tête-à-tête_, for the elder Mrs. de Vere had had her own meals ser...

“Sit down, Camille, and I will tell you the truth. Your name has most unfortunately been connected with this affair, because Lord Stuart swears that the last time he saw his poo...

Camille could not get home fast enough, she was so eager to go down to the river and search for the fatal bouquet that Lord Stuart had sent her. It had rushed over her suddenly...

“Camille, have pity on your immortal soul, and do not blacken it further by such terrible perjuries! You have lost no ring. You were searching for the bouquet that Robert Lacy b...

Left alone by her angry, outraged husband, Camille flung out of her chair and dragged herself upstairs to her own room. There she locked the door and threw herself down upon the...

“Finette, I am in bitter trouble. I sent for you to come back in defiance of my husband’s wishes, for I shall need your help--if, indeed, there is any help for me,” she said, qu...

“But, Norman, you will forgive her. Surely it can not be so bad as you think. These flirtations of married women are so distressingly common in high society, and Camille is too...

Camille had written from the dictation of the infamous French maid. She had alternately implored and threatened, vowing that Norman’s little protégée should serve her turn to po...

“It does not matter in the least, mother. I am glad Sweetheart destroyed the infamous thing. I only wish she could blot it out from my mind, too,” Norman said, impatiently.

“Why, Thea, of course,” said the beautiful golden-haired girl. “You knew when I went away to school we made that name up out of Sweetheart. I was called so by every one at schoo...

Thea West, for such was the pretty name the young girl had made out of her pet name Sweetheart, bounced into the house and flung herself down at the piano, leaving her discomfit...

Frank Hinton was walking up and down the pretty cottage parlor, all ready for the dancing-party. He was a handsome young fellow, not small and fair like his older brother, but t...

Thea did not wait for a second bidding from her indignant lover. She ran hurriedly out of the open door, and in her haste almost fell over Emmie, who had been listening outside....

It was almost thirteen years ago that the De Veres had quitted their beautiful home, with something almost akin to the sorrow of Adam and Eve in leaving Eden, so dear was the ol...

“He loved her so well. I can not make it out why he is so stubborn,” she thought, wonderingly. “Perhaps dere is some oder woman in the case. Boys are feeckle always, and what is...

It was no empty boast that Camille uttered when she threatened to haunt her husband. She meant it, and in the years that followed she made him realize her vindictive purpose man...

Camille had been dead more than two years now, and the shock of her death had worn off some from the minds of Norman de Vere and his devoted mother. They had gone back to Verela...

“Let me see George Hinton’s letter, Norman?” said Mrs. de Vere; and he passed it to her across the table, then sat musing with a far-off light in his grave, dark eyes.

“After all, it is very lonely without my mother. I am glad she is coming home to-night,” Norman de Vere said to himself, when quite two weeks of time had elapsed since his mothe...

Norman waited something over half an hour, and found himself growing oddly impatient for his mother’s return. A servant came in and lighted the gas, and then to pass the time aw...

After that first night, Norman de Vere found no occasion for unconscious pique at Thea’s sisterly frankness toward him. By the next morning her manner had changed indefinably. I...

Poor little Thea! she knew now why she had suffered with that late remorse for her scorn of her rejected lovers. It was because she had realized in her own heart all the sweetne...

The next morning a box was sent to Thea’s room, and on opening it she found a beautiful riding-habit of dark-blue cloth and a cap to match. To her surprise, it fitted exactly, a...

The next day Thea had another delightful canter with her guardian, and when they returned, he told her to bring her verses down to him as she had promised yesterday.

It was one of the hardest tasks that Norman de Vere set himself to stay away two days from Orange Grove and the blue-eyed beauty who had beguiled the heart from his breast in su...

Thea glanced anxiously at her guardian. He did not seem inclined to talk. Had she offended him by her boldness in asking him to stay longer with her when he was doubtless anxiou...

Norman called at Orange Grove every day after that; but it was always the same. The handsome Miss Bentley persisted in appropriating his visit entirely to herself, and gave him...

But after the ball-tickets went out, and Thea had come home, and the entertainment was but three days off, a heavy shadow fell upon Verelands, and it dated from a call made by M...

Two days of the most cruel unrest followed to Norman de Vere after that painful interview with his mother, for although he had fully resolved to ask Thea West to marry him, he c...

Thea caught up a big black sun-hat trimmed with a long wreath of trailing grasses, and took her way to her favorite resort--the river that flowed through the grounds at Verelands.

Thea was dressing for the ball. It took her a long, long time, she stopped so often to dream of her new-found happiness, and to thrill anew at the memory of the looks of love an...

“DEAR NELLIE,--I hope you are not mad with me about Cameron. They say he shot himself on my account. Oh, Nellie, please don’t think I led him on, for I never thought of such a t...

But that happy month came to an end at last, to be followed by still happier ones, for now it was sweet Thea’s bridal-eve, and she was going across the sea with the husband of h...

Lord Stuart was most anxious to approach Norman de Vere when he found out for certain that the beautiful young girl was his bride. If Camille was indeed dead, he wanted to pay h...

Lord Stuart could hardly understand the strange interest he took in Norman de Vere’s lovely young wife. She was beautiful, but he had seen many beautiful women without feeling m...

“My sister has fallen in love with my description of you, Mrs. de Vere, and as she already knows your gifted husband through his clever books, she is most anxious to meet you bo...

Three weeks had passed since their coming to London, and Thea had tasted all the sweetness and triumph of a triumphal entrance upon society, which had crowned her in her first w...

He was not disappointed, for soon there came a letter from her breathing all her pleasure at the good news, and expressing her hope that they would come home soon, so that she c...

“Baby darling, you are one year old to-day, and only see what Santa Claus has brought you--gifts splendid enough for a little prince!” cried Thea, kneeling down on the nursery f...

Hitherto she had cherished a profound pity for the unhappy woman who, having been fortunate enough to win Norman de Vere’s heart, had been too weak to hold it; now, a burning in...

“There is something wrong about the publication of my new book, dear, and my publisher has telegraphed me to come immediately to New York,” Norman said the next day to his wife,...

It was quite true that a footstep had paused outside the nursery-door. Thea’s quick ear had detected it, and she waited eagerly for the entrance of the nurse, as she supposed it...

Finette Du Val did not take kindly to the command of her mistress that she should leave the room. She had counted on the rare treat to her malicious mind of seeing Norman de Ver...

The first one was that he found out that there was an unexplainable mystery about the telegram he had received summoning him to a conference with his publisher over his new book...

Despite his stay of but a few hours in New York and his hasty journey there and back, it was almost a week between the going and coming of Norman de Vere, and his heart was full...

Camille began to tremble with nervous excitement when she beheld the man she had wronged so cruelly, but she rose immediately and made a step toward him, crying out in a tone th...

She had not waited to be thrust out-of-doors by the hands of her vindictive foe; she had gone herself, creeping forth with bowed head and unsteady steps at the earliest dawn of...

If Norman believes that the spell of his love is strong enough to trace Sweetheart in her flight, he is mistaken. Days elapse, and he has not found the first clew. If she has le...

In the trouble that had fallen upon him, Norman de Vere quite forgot Lord Stuart and his sister, the guests whom he was soon to receive at Verelands, or he would have written to...

“She will see us, for we have come from England to see her,” Lady Edith exclaimed, impetuously; while she wondered why every one had gone away and left her dear Thea ill and alone.

“My lord, I am very happy to meet you. You see I have come back to my own,” said Camille, with her old dazzling smile and radiant glance that he so well remembered.

Lord Stuart saw his sister comfortably settled in the best suite of rooms at the Hôtel Français, then he set himself to work to find out the whereabouts of Norman de Vere.

Lord Stuart went back to the cabin that night to share Norman’s vigil, and when he stood by the bedside of Mrs. de Vere, and saw what an awful change had come over the once hand...

Poor Thea! Her one thought and desire, after learning the bitter truth that her husband’s first wife lived to triumph over her, was to get away as far as possible from the husba...

But he did not tell Norman that he had found Thea and her baby. He had a little plan of his own, and wanted to carry it out in his own fashion.

It was February now, and a month had passed since Camille had returned to Verelands, bringing trouble and sorrow in her train. She was there still, and she began to believe that...

“Some callers,” she thought, wondering why that strange presentiment of evil trembled along her nerves. She shook it off, congratulating herself that the drawing-room was well l...

“Yes, Thea is my sister’s only child, my own dear niece, and her beautiful little boy yonder will, as next of kin to me, inherit my title and estates at my death. I am very prou...

“When you married the woman who called herself Miss Acton, she had a husband already living, so her marriage to you was void in law, and your marriage with my niece was, therefo...

“I know many things more with which to refresh your memory, if you persist in your insolence,” Camille retorted, angrily; and a sullen silence ensued, at which the proud mistres...