When the beautiful Miss Maybelle Maury, of Mount Vernon, New York, was returning in October, 1894, from her tour of Europe with her chaperon, Mrs. Vere de Vere, a New York society leader, she was introduced by the latter to our hero, handsome young St. George Beresford, the only son of a New York millionaire.

Life on shipboard offers many temptations to flirtation, and the fascinating youth did not show himself indifferent to the challenge that Maybelle’s dark, languishing eyes immediately flashed into his face. He attached himself to her party, and made lazy, languid love to the beauty all the way over.

The chaperon was delighted, and plumed herself not a little on the probable grand match she had brought about for her favorite Maybelle. She knew that the girl’s mother, her own distant relative, would be overjoyed at this lucky turn of Fortune’s wheel. Maybelle was nineteen, and it was time she was making her matrimonial market, because she had two younger sisters at school who must come out in a year or two more, and it would be so expensive having three girls in society at once, for the father, though a prosperous New York merchant, could not be rated among the millionaires.

Our space, however, will not permit us to follow the progress of Maybelle’s flirtation through those bright October days upon the sea.

But when the twain parted in New York, St. George Beresford was invited to visit the beauty at her home in Mount Vernon, close to the great metropolis, and carelessly promised to go “some day.”

It was a shame that the handsome rogue forgot all about it afterward, so that they did not meet again until the winter, when Maybelle was spending a month in the height of the season with her New York friend, Mrs. Vere de Vere.

Her dark eyes flashed with pleasure as they clasped hands again after those months of separation, and she cried reproachfully:

“You forgot your promise!”

The laughing brown eyes grew soft with repentance as he returned, coaxingly:

“Indeed, I meant to come to Mount Vernon, but—I went South the first of November with my folks, and didn’t return until—well, recently. So now—will you forgive me?”

Would she not forgive the deceitful wretch anything, charming Maybelle, who secretly adored him? She knew that he had only remained South five weeks, but she flashed him a melting glance, and murmured, sweetly:

“I’ll forgive you, sir, on only one condition—that you come in the early spring.”

“Only too glad to promise—so good of you to permit me,” cooed the jeunesse dorÉe; and so the flirtation was resumed, although not very spiritedly on his part. He was five-and-twenty, and several years in the social swim had made him shy of pretty anglers for rich catches.

They met at balls, operas, and receptions—they drove together a few times, he made several short calls, and sent her flowers and books, but his frank nonchalance through it all was not encouraging. It was froth on a light wave, and even the keen attention of Mrs. Vere de Vere could detect no latent earnestness.

“He does not seem to mean anything in particular,” she confided candidly to the girl on the last day of her stay; and Maybelle laughed and answered that she did not care—she had only been flirting with him.

But that night her pillow was wet with tears because of his careless farewell when he heard she was going.

But she could not banish his image from her warm heart. Her love, as well as her pride, was enlisted, and a little spark of hope kept alive in her heart the longing that he would keep his promise to come in the spring.

But it is more than probable that he would have audaciously forgotten again, only her brother Otho sought his acquaintance and attached himself to him, with the result that he “bagged the game”—that is, he brought St. George Beresford to Mount Vernon in May, when the handsome home on Prospect Avenue, Chester Hill, was looking its best among its trees and flowers.

Oh, how shyly happy Maybelle was at his coming! The love in her heart made her dusky beauty more dazzling than ever before. Joy lent a deeper, fuller cadence to her musical voice. Hope shone again like a brilliant star in her languishing dark eyes, with their heavy, black-fringed lashes.

St. George Beresford suddenly found her winning on him in a subtle fashion and told himself that really she was growing more charming with each day and hour. This tenderness and admiration might have ripened into passion for Maybelle, if only——

Ah! those words, if only—so short, so simple, yet so fraught with meaning!

Maybelle might have won Beresford’s heart and become his bride, if only he had not seen, as he lounged at the gate with Otho Maury, one May morning, that vision of a blue-eyed, golden-haired, cherry-lipped, dimpled-faced girl in dark blue flashing past the gate on a shining wheel, leaving in his heart a memory of the sweetest, sauciest, most adorable young face in the world.

“Who is she?” he asked, hoarsely, of Otho; who replied, carelessly:

“Miss Florence Fane, the carpenter’s daughter, nicknamed Fly-away Floy, by reason of her hoidenish ways and never did a girl deserve the title more.”

It was that lovely face, dear reader, that brought the elements of tragedy into my story.