“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.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
AN ADMIRING STRANGER.
Violet had been sobbing softly at the recital of her friend’s sorrows, but now she lifted her fair head, and dashing the tears from her eyes, answered, tenderly:
“I will tell you the whole harrowing story, Lena, for I was indeed the horrified witness of your poor father’s death, and the memory of that scene will never leave me while life lasts!”
Lena pressed her cold little hand and waited anxiously for her to begin.
“I must tell you first how I came to be in Chicago at that time,” said Violet. “You see, I was at boarding-school, and last June our lady principal and her senior class formed a party to attend the World’s Fair together for a stay of ten days or so. I wrote to grandpapa, and he readily gave his consent to the plan and inclosed me a generous check for expenses. On the first of June our party, consisting of Mrs. Maynard, our teacher, and ten young girls, arrived in Chicago, full of joyous anticipations over the wonderful sights we were to see.