CHAPTER XLIV. BUT ONE CHANCE IN A HUNDRED.

But we must turn our attention from other interests for awhile to follow the fortunes of our unhappy heroine, lovely Floy.

How sadly her fortunes had altered since we first saw her flashing through the streets of Mount Vernon on her bicycle, a vision of beauty, light of heart, and careless as a joyous little humming-bird!

Love and sorrow had come to her as it comes to many, hand in hand, saddening her heart and changing her life.

Her life in those weeks with Alva had been widened in its scope. The clever and intelligent Alva had taught her many things.

Bitterest of all, she had learned how wide was the gulf of pride that yawned between her, a simple poor girl, and the heir of the Beresfords.

Self-exiled in her pride and poverty, she stole away from her luxuriant home that summer night, her blue eyes blinded by heavy tears, her heart aching in its desolation, yet with no thought of turning back from the conflict that lay before her in the struggle for existence.

In that slender, lovely form was embodied indomitable pride and strong self-will.

Her heart swelled with bitterness against St. George Beresford, who, after pretending to love her with such entire devotion, could be so easily swayed from his allegiance by another’s will.

“He was not worthy my love!” she cried bitterly to her heart, as she flitted along Fifth Avenue in the glare of the lights, but so plainly dressed and heavily veiled that none could notice the wonderful beauty that might have attracted unwelcome admiration.

As her flight from Alva’s protection had been carefully planned ever since she had heard of St. George’s projected return, Floy had made sure of a refuge that, though lowly, would be safe and secure.

In an humble quarter of the city, not very far away from the Beresford mansion, lived a poor woman who made her living by lace-mending and embroidery. The Beresford ladies frequently employed her, and Floy had seen her a number of times during her stay with Alva. She knew that the woman lived alone very quietly with an aged, bed-ridden mother, and she had made private arrangements to go and board with this humble soul for a week until she could make arrangements for her future.

To this humble home Floy made her way without accident of any kind, and was welcomed by Ruth Bascom, the spinster lace-mender. That night the restless little golden head was pillowed on straw instead of down, the luxury of yesterday exchanged for the poverty of to-day.

She sat upon the side of the hard cot looking about her with a bitter smile, wondering why fortune was so unequally divided in this world, and if the Beresfords deserved wealth and happiness any more than she and the Bascoms did poverty and pain.

A passionate wish came to her to meet the Beresfords on equal grounds--to be rich and grand, to wear jewels and laces, and dance at their grand balls.

“They would not pity and scorn me then--they would be glad for their son to marry me,” she thought.

The wish grew into a longing as the sleepless hours wore on.

Visions came to her in the long, sultry night--so close and hot in the stifling little chamber that she could not rest--of how different life might have been if only the wealth that had become only a tradition in the family now had not been so strangely lost.

“I should be his equal now. No one would try to part us, and--we should be so happy!” she sobbed; and the bitter, bitter tears came in a burning shower.

She buried her hot face in the pillow, shuddering, for a wild temptation had come to her--one from which she shrunk in terror.

She murmured, faintly:

“It is a terrible risk; but what matter? Life is not so sweet that one should greatly prize it, even if goaded to throw it away!”

But she hid her face in her hands, and her slight frame shook as with a mortal chill.

A vision had swept over her of the day when she had found her beautiful mother cold and dead--dead by her own hand--and how she, a weeping child, had been taken to the hearts of the good, kind old couple who had loved her so dearly.

“If I died, there would be none to weep for me--none but dear Mrs. Banks,” she thought, piteously; and the terrible temptation to risk life for the sake of sordid gold overpowered the poor girl who had never realized till now the worldly value of the hard, yellow, shining metal.

A yearning to be rich and grand like the Beresfords, to meet them on equal grounds, to give them scorn for scorn, to flaunt before their eyes the devotion of other lovers, overpowered the unhappy girl, who knew that there was one chance in a hundred of realizing these radiant dreams--one chance which she vowed to strive for despite the grim records of sixty years of her ill-fated race.

It was August now, and ten years had passed since a victim had been immolated on the grim altar of the Moloch of Suicide Place. Would it claim another sacrifice, this insatiable monster? But a few months of the fatal year remained.

“Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.”