A bitter reckoning;

by Mrs. E. Burke Collins

Where was Leonard? Why had he deserted her? He had not returned to the library, and Violet did not know that he had been with her. Somehow, her heart sunk with a vague alarm. Something in the fact of his absence struck to her aching heart like a blow. Had he forgotten her? Then he had ceased to care for her—had never cared at all.

With all the usual inconsistency of a woman, she forgot that only a few hours had elapsed since Leonard Yorke’s avowal of love for her. How could he possibly have changed in that short time?

It was the wild outreaching of the loving, lonely little heart, and the intense disappointment that crushed down upon it like a vise was almost more than she could bear.

Once in her own chamber, she begged her aunt and cousin to leave her. The guests had, of course, long since departed; only Leonard remained, as he felt that he had a right to do. But Violet was ignorant of this fact, and so she misjudged him. Ah! if we only knew each other’s motives, how different life would be! And Violet never dreamed that Leonard had been forbidden by Mrs. Rutledge to enter her presence, and, with natural delicacy, the young man had held himself aloof.

Left alone in her own chamber, Violet’s first act was to lock its door against possible intruders. Then she placed the letter, which she still held in her hand, safely away in her little writing-desk; and at that moment she remembered the poem which Will Venners had given her—the pretty love verses written for the eyes of Jessie Glyndon alone. She searched in the lace of her corsage, but the poem was gone. Still, it was nothing of vital importance, and in the presence of the awful affliction which had come upon her and that other trouble which she felt certain was about to come into her life through Gilbert Warrington, she thought no more about it.

And little did she dream of the important part which that poem was destined to play in her own future. Little things sometimes sway and alter our whole lives. The veriest trifle may possibly work great and stupendous results. The mouse gnaws the rope which sets the prisoner free; a file can sever iron bars; a word in due season, how much good it can accomplish! Life is made up of trifles, after all. Victor Hugo maintains that had it not been for the small circumstance of a shower of rain, Napoleon would not have lost Waterloo, and the fate of two great nations might have been vastly different.

Down-stairs, in the deserted library, Leonard Yorke was pacing to and fro, his face pale and full of trouble. Something indefinable haunted him; a feeling of doubt, of distrust regarding Violet had taken possession of his heart. Leonard was by nature inclined to be jealous, and Hilda had contrived to arouse his latent jealousy.

Leonard thought it all over—all his supposed grounds for distrust of Violet—and his heart grew heavy. His mother, too, did not like Violet, and was always trying to influence her son against the girl, though this Violet never suspected.

Up and down he paced restlessly, impatient for news of Violet before he would go home. Yorke Towers was some two miles distant from The Oaks, and he was determined to remain until he was assured of his darling’s recovery from the indisposition which had prostrated her. As he paced slowly up and down the library, his eyes fell upon a folded paper lying upon the floor, just under the edge of a sofa. He stooped mechanically and picked it up. It was a closely written sheet of note-paper, evidently verses. Leonard Yorke’s brow contracted with an angry frown as he recognized Will Venners’ plain, elegant chirography—the gallant young captain who had seen service under Custer in the far West, but now seemed more at home in luxurious drawing-rooms at the feet of beauty. To sum it all up in a few words, Will Venners was the only man whom Leonard feared as a rival.

He stood there now slowly turning over the poem which Will had so carefully written to the woman he loved. But how was Leonard to know that it was meant for Jessie Glyndon? Had he not seen Captain Venners slip the paper into Violet’s willing hand out in the moonlight on the river-bank, when neither of them thought themselves observed? A hot flood of anger swelled Leonard Yorke’s heart. Slowly he read the lines, and as he read, the anger grew and strengthened: