VAL SINESTRA VAL SINESTRA BY MARTHA MORTON [Illustration] “_Oh Soul! Mysterious Vale Where Spirits dwell--of Light--of Darkest Night! Who knows Thee, ‘Val Sinestra,’ --Thy Melody--Thy Madness?_” [From the Romash Dialect] NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright 1924 By E. P. Dutton & Company _All Rights Reserved_ _Printed in the United States of America_ VAL SINESTRA BOOK I “The lives of men and women are pictures thrown upon the screen of Time. The Past--its misty perspective, its legendary charm; Truth veiled in Fiction.” VAL SINESTRA BOOK I 1 About twenty-five years ago, Pedro Gonzola bought that handsome brown stone residence at the corner of Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue, and presented it to his bride on their wedding day. As the name implied, they were of Spanish origin, and known as devout Catholics, supporting the Church spiritually and materially. Shortly before Julie was born, her father died suddenly, stricken down with heart failure. The young widow was stunned by the loss of her handsome adoring husband; her uncontrollable grief nearly cost her the life of her coming child, who suffered from her mother’s anguish--at least that’s what the good Dr. McClaren said. After her great misfortune Mrs. Gonzola gave up the world and devoted herself to her religion and the care of her little daughter. Julie was sent to the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Seventeenth Street. The Sisters educated her under the personal supervision of her mother; their reports were satisfactory; the child was docile and receptive, but inclined to emotional exaggeration; she would remain in the chapel long after the other children had left, and once they found her prostrate before the Virgin in a state of ecstatic self-oblivion, which ended in a fit of hysteria. There was no cause for worry, as otherwise she was “full of life” and a general favorite. Mrs. Gonzola tried conscientiously to impress her daughter with the dignity of her wealth, social position, and family distinction; but as the girl grew into a woman, there was an ever-present irritating sense of failure. Julie Gonzola at sixteen, with her brilliant exotic beauty, was a mystery to her friends, her mother, herself. She was acutely conscious of strange emotions, which she instinctively concealed; hers was a nature of unexpected impulses, tragic possibilities, baffling secrets. She came of an old stock on her father’s side, and on her mother’s she could look down a long corridor, where she saw shadowy forms, which frightened her. She was different from her girl friend, who was care-free, bubbling, sparkling, dashing along like a brook which overflows its bounds out of sheer rapture.