THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM
OR,
WEDDED FOR A WEEK
BY MAY AGNES FLEMING
CHAPTER I.--THE WALRAVEN BALL.
CHAPTER II.--"CRICKET."
CHAPTER III.--MR. WALRAVEN'S WEDDING.
CHAPTER IV.--MOLLIE'S CONQUEST.
CHAPTER V.--MOLLIE'S MISCHIEF.
CHAPTER VI.--MOLLIE'S BRIDAL.
CHAPTER VII.--WHERE THE BRIDE WAS.
CHAPTER VIII.--THE MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE.
CHAPTER IX.--ONE WEEK AFTER.
CHAPTER X.--THE PARSON'S LITTLE STORY.
CHAPTER XI.--A MIDNIGHT TETE-A-TETE.
CHAPTER XII.--"BLACK MASK"—"WHITE MASK."
CHAPTER XIII.--MRS. CARL WALRAVEN'S LITTLE GAME.
CHAPTER XIV.--THE SPIDER AND THE FLY.
CHAPTER XV.--THE MAN IN THE MASK.
CHAPTER XVI.--MOLLIE'S DESPAIR.
CHAPTER XVII.--MIRIAM TO THE RESCUE.
CHAPTER XVIII.--"SHE ONLY SAID, 'MY LIFE IS DREARY.'"
CHAPTER XIX.--MISTRESS SUSAN SHARPE.
CHAPTER XX.--HUGH INGELOW KEEPS HIS PROMISE.
CHAPTER XXI.--MRS. SHARPE DOES HER DUTY.
CHAPTER XXII.--A MOONLIGHT FLITTING.
CHAPTER XXIII.--PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
CHAPTER XXIV.--MOLLIE'S TRIUMPH.
CHAPTER XXV.--MIRIAM'S MESSAGE.
CHAPTER XXVI.--MIRIAM'S STORY.
CHAPTER XXVII.--DEAD AND BURIED.
CHAPTER XXVIII.--CRICKET'S HUSBAND.
CHAPTER XXIX.--WHICH WINDS UP THE BUSINESS.
CHAPTER I.
THE WALRAVEN BALL.
A dark November afternoon—wet, and windy, and wild. The New Yorkstreets were at their worst—sloppy, slippery, and sodden; the skylowering over those murky streets one uniform pall of inky gloom. A bad,desolate, blood-chilling November afternoon.
And yet Mrs. Walraven's ball was to come off to-night, and it was ratherhard upon Mrs. Walraven that the elements should make a dead set at herafter this fashion.
The ball was to be one of the most brilliant affairs of the season, andall Fifth Avenue was to be there in its glory.
Fifth Avenue was above caring for anything so commonplace as theweather, of course; but still it would have been pleasanter, and onlya handsome thing in the clerk of the weather, considering Mrs. Walravenhad not given a ball for twenty years before, to have burnished up thesun, and brushed away the clouds, and shut up that icy army of winterwinds, a