An Ambitious Man

Quivering with pain and terror, the young girl cast the letter into

the fire, thinking that it was the work of one of those half-crazed

beings whose mania takes the form of anonymous letters to unoffending

people. Only recently such a person had been brought into the courts

for this offence. It occurred to her also that it might be the work

of someone who wished to obtain her position as organist of St

Blank's. Musicians, she knew, were said to be the most jealous of

all people, and while she had never suffered from them before, it

might be that her time had now come to experience the misfortunes of

her profession.

Tender-hearted and kindly in feeling to all humanity, she felt a

sickening sense of sorrow and fear at the thought that there existed

such a secret enemy for her anywhere in the world.

She went out upon the street, and for the first time in her life she

experienced a sense of suspicion and distrust toward the people she

met; for the first time in her life, she realised that the world was

not all kind and ready to give her back the honest friendship and the

sweet good-will which filled her heart for all her kind. Strive as

she would, she could not cast off the depression caused by this vile

letter. It was her first experience of this cowardly and despicable

phase of human malice, and she felt wounded in soul as by a poisoned

arrow shot in the dark. And then, suddenly, there came to her the

memory of her mother's words--"If unhappiness ever comes to you, read

this letter."

Surely this was the time she needed to read that letter. That it

contained some secret of her mother's life she felt sure, and she was

equally sure that it contained nothing that would cause her to blush

for that beloved mother.

"Whatever the manuscript may have to reveal to me," she said, "it is

time that I should know." She took the package from the hiding

place, and broke the seal. Slowly she read it to the end, as if

anxious to make no error in understanding every phase of the long

story it related. Beginning with the marriage of her mother to the

French professor, Berene gave a detailed account of her own sad and

troubled life, and the shadow which the father's appetite for drugs

cast over her whole youth. "They say," she wrote, "that there is no

personal devil in existence. I think this is true; he has taken the

form of drugs and spirituous liquors, and so his work of devastation

goes on." Then followed the story of the sacrilegious marriage to

save her father from suicide, of her early widowhood; and the proffer

of the Baroness to give her a home. Of her life of servitude there,

her yearning for an education, and her meeting with "Apollo," as she

designated Preston Cheney. "For truly he was like the glory of the

rising day to me, the first to give me hope, courage and unselfish

aid. I loved him, I worshipped him. He loved me, but he strove to

crush and kill this love because he had worked out an ambitious

career for himself. To extricate himself from many difficulties and

embarrassments, and to further his ambitious dreams, he betrothed

himself to the daughter of a rich and powerful man. He made no

profession of love, and she asked none. She was incapable of giving

or inspiring that holy passion. She only asked to be married.