Produced by Charlene Taylor, Michael and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: The stranger raised his hat and said: "Permit me to ask your name?" "Salome Owen. And yours, sir, is--" "Ulpian Gray." Page 10.--_Vashti._] VASHTI _or_ UNTIL DEATH US DO PART By AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON (Augusta J. Evans) Author of "Beulah," "Macaria," "Infelice," "St. Elmo," "Inez," etc., etc., "There is nothing a man knows, in grief or in sin half so bitter as to think, what I might have been." A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1869, by GEORGE W. CARLETON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897, by MRS. AUGUSTA J. EVANS WILSON, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C. _Vashti._ TO THE HONORED MEMORY OF MY _Beloved Father_, WHOSE DEATH HAS RETARDED THE COMPLETION OF A WORK WHICH, IN THE BEGINNING, WAS BLESSED WITH HIS APPROVAL, I REVERENTLY DEDICATE THIS BOOK. PREFACE. "Every man has his own style, as he has his own nose; and it is neither polite nor Christian to rally an honest man about his nose, however singular it may be. How can I help it that my style is not different? That there is no affectation in it, I am very certain." _Lessing._ "Yea, I take myself to witness, That I have loved no darkness, Sophisticated no truth, Nursed no delusion, Allowed no fear." _Matthew Arnold._ UNTIL DEATH US DO PART. CHAPTER I. "I can hear the sullen, savage roar of the breakers, if I do not see them, and my pretty painted bark--expectation--is bearing down helplessly upon them. Perhaps the unwelcome will not come to-day. What then? I presume I should not care; and yet, I am curious to see him,--anxious to know what sort of person will henceforth rule the house, and go in and out here as master. Of course the pleasant, peaceful days are at an end, for men always make din and strife in a household,--at least my father did, and he is the only one I know much about. But, after all, why borrow trouble?--the interloper may never come."