Sweet Violet

The two girls, Violet and Lena, spent the remaining hours of the night in the garret of the lonely old woodland cabin.

As there was no bed, they could not sleep, but indeed they were so excited that they did not care to do so. They preferred to remain awake and discuss their plans for the future.

Although Violet was wild to communicate at once with Cecil Grant, she permitted Lena to persuade her that it would be unwise to attempt it yet.

“Harold Castello will be watching him very closely, and detection might follow on the slightest correspondence. It is best to wait a while,” she said.

For the same reason Violet’s first intention of seeking her father’s relatives was tabooed, since it was natural that suspicion should be directed toward them.

“Your best plan is to come home with me to my poor widowed mother, and remain a while in hiding,” advised Lena Lavarre.

“But I have no money, dear Lena.”

“That makes no difference, my friend, for we have a cozy little home of our own. Ah, would that I had never left it at the temptings of that black-hearted scoundrel who won my heart and betrayed my trust!” sighed Lena, with unavailing remorse.

“Tell me how it happened, please,” cried Violet, with girlish curiosity over a love affair.

The poor girl dashed the bitter tears from her brown eyes and answered:

“It is a very simple story, dear Violet, though it ended so tragically. To begin at the beginning, I made his acquaintance in a way that I am ashamed of now—by a street flirtation! Pretty young girls are often very vain and thoughtless; I’m afraid I was both, for I delighted in the admiring glances I met from gay young men upon the street. I forgot to tell you that my home is in Washington. My poor father was a druggist, and we had a neat little home of our own. I was the only child. Father and mother had married late in life, and they fairly doted on me, and gave me all the advantages they could afford. Ah, how good they were to me, and how poorly I repaid their love!” sighed the unhappy and repentant girl.

“Poor Lena!” murmured Violet, tenderly, and, choking back a sob, the girl continued:

“I was called very pretty, and I kept company with some very gay young girls in my own class of life. We delighted in dressing in our best and promenading on Pennsylvania avenue, where we were guilty of flirting in a way that makes me bitterly ashamed now, for I realize too late that no pure young girl who respects herself should stoop to court attention and admiration from strangers. But I was giddy and thoughtless, my companions the same, and thus I made the acquaintance of the man who wrecked my life. He was handsome, as you know, and a few chance meetings and stolen glances completed the conquest of my silly heart. I permitted him to call on me at my home, and he told me that he lived in Chicago, and if I made a visit to the great World’s Fair he would be pleased to escort me through its wonders. He would return home in a week and ardently wished I were going then, so that he might have the pleasure of my company.

“To hasten over this unpleasant story, I begged my parents to take me to the great fair, but they refused to do so, and desired me to put the notion out of my head. They also disapproved of my fine new lover, and bade me drop his acquaintance.

“Smarting with resentment, I told Harold everything. A few secret meetings followed, then he persuaded me to elope with him. I agreed, and we were married, as I thought, by a Methodist minister and left for Chicago.

“Violet, I believe, before Heaven, that he loved me at first as much as it is possible for such a nature to love. He gave me one week of the wildest happiness. Some days we attended the Fair, on others we visited the sights of the great city. He often called me wife, and the servants in the hotel called me Mrs. Stanley, for that was the name I knew him by at first. But as the days went by he seemed to weary of me. He indulged in drink, and became coarse and brutal, declaring that he had acted hastily in bringing me away with him. At last—why need I linger over it?—he told me to go, that I was not his wife—never had been! When I came to myself, having fallen in a faint at his cruel words, I found myself deserted, with a purse of gold by my side, and a curt note bidding me return to my parents.

“I retained my senses just long enough to have a telegram sent my father to come for me, then I collapsed, and brain fever set in. My father arrived, and from my raving gathered the terrible story of my deception and desertion by Stanley, as he called himself.

“I shall never know how it all came about, perhaps, Violet, for it was a mystery from beginning to end; but while I still lay on my sick-bed, ill unto death, my poor father was found lifeless in a vile house in the city—murdered, with a knife thrust in the heart. No evidence was produced to prove who was his murderer, and to-day he lies in an unavenged grave—my poor, poor father, who was so fond of his little Lena.

“But, Violet, I have never doubted how my father came to his death. He was no doubt on the track of my betrayer. He found him, and in an altercation was murdered by the man I afterward found was Harold Castello, a fast young man of Chicago. But I could not bring home his guilt to him, although I have been on his track ever since my recovery. But now all is different, dear, for you saw him commit the murder. You can help me to bring it home to him.”