LET US KISS AND PART.
CHAPTER I.
WHEN POVERTY ENTERS THE DOOR.
To love and hate in the same breath, it is as cruel as a tragedy.
Leon and Verna Dalrymple knew all that subtle pain as they faced each other in the cold, gray light of that autumn day whereon they were parting forever.
It was not simply a lovers’ quarrel, either.
The pity of it was that they were husband and wife, both very young, both very fond, but driven apart by unreasoning pride and passion.
The husband was twenty-one years old, the bride but seventeen—a case of “marry in haste, repent at leisure.”
Six months ago the bride, sole daughter of a wealthy family, had eloped from boarding school with a poor young man, a teacher of music.
For her fault the daughter had been cast off by her parents, and the young man dismissed from the school where he taught. Unable to secure another position, misfortune had steadily tracked his footsteps until he could scarcely afford bread for himself and the fair, dainty bride.
Having rushed into marriage without thought for the future, misfortune soured their naturally hasty tempers, and when the fierce wolf of poverty came in at the door love flew out of the window.