Chapter XXXVI: The Author’s Bride

Fair had scarcely been widowed a week before a great financial crash swept away every dollar of Bayard Lorraine’s fortune.

He did not pretend to take it calmly. He grieved most bitterly over his loss.

“I must depend now on my pen for my daily bread,” he said.

And the next day he came to the Fifth Avenue mansion to bid her and Mrs. Howard a hasty good-by, saying that he was going South to collect materials for a novel.

Fair was so dazed by the suddenness of it all that she could scarcely speak. To lose him like this, when she had, as it were, just found him again, seemed most cruel. She went away by herself, to weep bitterly for her lost lover.

He had been gone more than six months when, in one of Mrs. Howard’s letters, there came some news that made his heart throb wildly.

“I do not know what you will think of Fair,” said the letter.
“She has actually given away every dollar of Prince Gonzaga’s
money, and reduced herself to poverty. First, there was her old
friend, Sadie Osborne, whose husband has been out of work so long
with his broken arms--she got five thousand dollars. Then there
was some woman named Burns that showed her a little kindness
after her mother died, and she got five thousand dollars. An old
policeman who gave her a kind word and a packet of car tickets
once when she was escaping from her husband, received the same
amount of money. In short, everybody who ever treated her kindly
received a reward. That beautiful Florentine villa she presented
to me by deed of gift, and I am going back there next winter.
The rest of the money--over a hundred thousand dollars--she
has given to found a home for orphan Italians in this city, as
Gonzaga was an Italian, and she thought his countrymen ought to
have the money. It will be called the Prince Gonzaga Home. I did
not approve of it, I can tell you, but she was her own mistress,
having come of age several months ago, and she would not listen
to my advice, but says coolly that she knows I will give her a
bite and a sup as long as I live, and that then she can go to
work again.”

That letter took Bayard Lorraine back to New York as fast as steam could carry him. All barriers that had kept him from Fair had now been swept aside.

He proposed immediately to the girl of his heart, and she accepted him, telling him she would accompany him to the ends of the earth.

* * * * *

When they came home from their bridal tour, Mrs. Howard had made a wonderful discovery. She said:

“I have found out, Fair, about the distant relation who is to inherit my husband’s money. I have been settling my affairs with the lawyers, and discovered that it was a woman who threw him over for a good-looking journalist, and was disinherited by her family. She was distantly related to him, and he never quite ceased to care for her, so he left that will, providing that in event of failure of heirs of his own this distant cousin should inherit all. The woman was your mother, Mary Fairfax Fielding, and as she is dead you will inherit my husband’s money. So you must come home to me at once, and begin to enjoy your inheritance.”

THE END.

“Her Fateful Choice,” by Charlotte M. Stanley, is No. 1157 of the
NEW EAGLE LIBRARY. This is a charming novel that will appeal to
all lovers of romance.

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Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.