Among all the radiant beauties that promenaded the beach and danced in the ball rooms at Long Branch, the young bride of Colonel Carlyle became immediately distinguished for her pre-eminent loveliness.

Wherever she went she created a great sensation.

People went to the places where they heard she would be, just to look at that "faultily faultless" face "star-sweet on a gloom profound."

Artists raved over her form and features. They said she was the fairest woman in the world, and that her beauty had but one fault—it was too cold and pale. One touch of glow and color in that "passionless, pale, cold face," they said, would have made her so lovely that men would have gone mad for her—gone mad or died.

And then she was so young, they said. She had never been presented in society. Colonel Carlyle, the cunning old fox, had married her out of the schoolroom before anyone had a chance to see her. The fops and dandies swore at him behind their waxed mustaches, while better and nobler men said it was a shame that such a fair, charming girl should be wedded to such an old man.

There were some who said that the girl, young as she was, had a hidden heart-history. These were the poets and dreamers. They said that the language of those pale cheeks and drooping eyes was that she had been torn from her handsome lover's side and bartered for an old man's gold.

But these were mere conjectures. No one knew anything about her certainly, until Mrs. Arnold and Felise came down after a week's delay. Then they knew that she was the daughter of General Vere, and the niece of Francis Arnold, the murdered millionaire.

[Pg 62]

Felise told them of the artist lover who had murdered the millionaire because he would not give him his niece. The excitement only ran higher than before, and people looked at the young creature with even more curiosity and interest than ever.

Bonnibel could not help seeing that she was an object of interest and admiration to everyone about her. She saw that the men sought her side eagerly and often, and that the women were jealous of her. At first she was vexed and angry about it. She could not get a moment to herself. They were always seeking her out, always hovering about her like butterflies round a flower. She wondered why they came round her so, but at length she remembered what she had almost forgotten. Uncle Francis had often told her so; Leslie Dane had told her so; she had heard it from others, too, and even Wild Madge had admitted it.

Ah! Wild Madge! Over her memory rushed the words of the fearful old hag, freighted with a deeper meaning than they had held at first.

"You are beautiful, but your beauty will be your bane." "Years of sorrow lie before you!" "You will be a young man's bride, but an old man's darling!"

"It has all come true," she thought, turning from the circle around her, and looking wistfully out over the waves that came swelling against the shore, like some wild heart beating against the bars of life. "It has all come true—yet how little I dreamed that she could read the future that lies folded, like the leaves of a book, from first sight. How little I thought that a shadow could ever fall between me and happiness! Yet in a few short months her wild prediction has been fulfilled. I have drank deeply of sorrow's cup. I have been a young man's bride; now they say I am an old man's darling. All—all has been fulfilled save the shame and disgrace with which she threatened me. But that can never come, never, never!" and a look of pride came over the fair face, and the round throat was curved defiantly.

Colonel Carlyle was quite happy and proud at first over the sensation created by his beautiful girl-wife. He liked to see how much people admired her. It pleased him to note the admiring glances that followed her slightest movement.

She belonged to him, and all the admiration she excited was a tribute to his taste and his pride.

For a whole week he was as pleased and happy as a man could be, but a shadow fell upon him with the coming of Felise. He grew morbidly jealous.

Jealous, and without a shadow of reason, for Bonnibel was like the chaste and lovely moon—she shone coldly and alike upon all.

But the colonel became a changed man—everyone noticed it, and many said that the old man was growing jealous of his beautiful darling.

But no one could tell how it came about, not even Felise Herbert, who, when questioned by her mother, refused to admit that the faintest, most insidious hint from her lips had been dropped like poison into the cup of perfect happiness from which the doting old husband was fondly drinking.

[Pg 63]

One morning a note lay on his dressing-table—a little note scrawled in a disguised hand—he took it up and read it, then put it down again and stood gazing blankly at it as if it were the death-warrant of his happiness. It was very short, but every word was stamped indelibly on his memory.

"Your wife," it ran, "wears a little opal ring on the third finger of her right hand. She prizes it more than all the costly jewels you have lavished upon her. It was the gift of a former lover whom she still adores. Ask her to cease wearing the ring, or even to show you the inscription inside, and you will see who has the warmest place in her heart."

Could this be true? Was this a friend who warned him, he thought. He remembered the pretty little ring perfectly.

The jealous pang that had been tearing at his heart for days grew sharper than ever.

He knew his wife did not love him yet, but he had fondly hoped to win her heart in time.

If what the writer of that anonymous letter said was true, then it was vain to hope any longer.

"A former lover whom she still adored." Oh! God, could that be true?

"I will test her," he said to himself. "No one shall poison my mind against my beautiful wife without a cause. 'I will put it to the test and win or lose it all.'"

He went to a jeweler's that morning and came back with a little box in his vest-pocket.

Then he asked Bonnibel if she would walk down to the seashore with him.

She complied with a gentle smile, and he found her a shady seat a little off from the crowd, where they could talk uninterrupted.

She laid down her parasol, and removing her delicate gloves folded her white hands listlessly together.

Colonel Carlyle took up the hand that wore the opal ring and looked at it fondly.

"My dear," he said, "that is a very pretty ring you wear, but it is not beautiful enough for your perfect hand. I have brought you a much handsomer one with which to replace it."

He took it from his pocket and showed it to her—a lovely, shimmering opal set round with gleaming pearls.

"I have heard that opals are unlucky stones," he said, "but if you are not superstitious, and like to wear them, will you lay aside the simple one you now have and put this on instead?" and he made a movement as if he woul............