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[Illustration: LOUIS DASHED THE GLOWING END OF HIS CIGAR IN THE <DW64>'S
FACE.]




A BEAUTIFUL POSSIBILITY

BY

EDITH FERGUSON BLACK





A BEAUTIFUL POSSIBILITY.



CHAPTER I.


In one of the fairest of the West Indian islands a simple but elegant
villa lifted its gabled roofs amidst a bewildering wealth of tropical
beauty. Brilliant birds flitted among the foliage, gold and silver
fishes darted to and fro in a large stone basin of a fountain which
threw its glittering spray over the lawn in front of the house, and on
the vine-shaded veranda hammocks hung temptingly, and low wicker chairs
invited to repose.

Behind the jalousies of the library the owner of the villa sat at a
desk, busily writing. He was a slight, delicate looking man, with an
expression of careless good humor upon his face and an easy air of
assurance according with the interior of the room which bespoke a
cultured taste and the ability to gratify it. Books were everywhere,
rare bits of china, curios and exquisitely tinted shells lay in
picturesque confusion upon tables and wall brackets of native woods;
soft silken draperies fell from the windows and partially screened from
view a large alcove where microscopes of different sizes stood upon
cabinets whose shelves were filled with a miscellaneous collection of
rare plants and beautiful insects, specimens from the agate forest of
Arizona, petrified remains from the 'Bad Lands' of Dakota, feathery
fronded seaweed, skeletons of birds and strange wild creatures, and all
the countless curiosities in which naturalists delight.

Lenox Hildreth when a young man, forced to flee from the rigors of the
New England climate by reason of an inherited tendency to pulmonary
disease, had chosen Barbadoes as his adopted country, and had never
since revisited the land of his birth. From the first, fortune had
smiled upon him, and when, some time after his marriage with the
daughter of a wealthy planter, she had come into possession of all her
father's estates, he had built the house which for fifteen years he had
called home. When Ev