The air was thick with falling snow, and the countryside looked a formless mass of chilly whiteness, as the southwestern mail train carried John Treverton on a lonely midnight journey. There were not ...

Jasper Treverton lingered nearly a week after the coming of his kinsman⁠—a week that seemed interminable to the expectant heir, who could not help wishing the old man would make a speedy end of it. Wh...

The next day was fine, and Mr. Sampson and his visitor set out in a dogcart directly after breakfast on a tour of inspection. They got over a good deal of ground between an eight o’clock breakfast and...

About this time there appeared among the multifarious placards which adorned the dead walls and hoardings and railway arches and waste spaces of London one mystical dissyllable, which was to be seen e...

Laura Malcolm remained at the Manor House. Mr. Clare, the vicar, had persuaded her to relinquish her idea of going into lodgings in the village. It would be a pity to abandon the good old house, he ar...

Slowly, reluctantly, Winter crawled away to his hidden lair, and made room for a chilly, uncomfortable spring. It had been the longest, dullest winter that Jack Chicot had ever lived through. He did n...

It was midwinter when Jasper Treverton died. Spring had come in all her glory⁠—her balmy airs and sultry noontides, stolen from summer; her variety and wealth of wood and meadow blossoms; her snowy or...

There was excitement and agitation in Cibber Street, Leicester Square, that essentially dramatic, musical, and terpsichorean nook in the great forest of London. La Chicot had narrowly escaped death. I...

It was late in November, and the trees were bare in the grounds of Hazlehurst Manor. The grand old mansion wore its air of grave dignity, under the dull, grey skies of late autumn, but the charms and ...

John Treverton stayed at the Manor House till after dark, alone with his betrothed, and happier than he had ever been in his life. Yes, happy, though it was with a desperate happiness as of a child pl...

Laura was utterly happy in the brief interval between her betrothal and her wedding. She had given her love and trust unreservedly, feeling that duty and love went hand in hand. In following the incli...

The last day of the year, nature’s dullest, dreariest interval between the richness of autumn and the fresh young beauty of spring. Not a flower in the prim old Manor House garden, save a melancholy t...

Laura had been married three weeks and a day, and the new year was just three weeks old. It was a very ailing and ungenial year in this infantine stage of its existence. There had been hardly a day of...

Mr. Smolendo was in his glory. In the words of his friends and followers he was coining money. He was a man to be cultivated and revered. A man for whom champagne suppers or dinners at Richmond were a...

“Hazlehurst Rectory, February 22nd.⁠—Dear Ned⁠—Do you remember my saying, when Laura refused to have a proper wedding gown, that her marriage was altogether an ill-omened business? I told her so, I to...

“This looks as if he were serious, doesn’t it?” asked La Chicot. The question was addressed to Mr. Desrolles. The two were standing side by side in the wintry dusk, in front of one of the windows that...

Murder! an awful word under the most ordinary circumstances of everyday life⁠—all awful word even when spoken of an event that happened long ago, or afar off. But what a word shouted in the dead of ni...

The inquest was held at noon next day. The news of the murder had spread far and wide already, and there was a crowd gathered round the house in Cibber Street all the morning, much to Mrs. Evitt’s agg...

It was summer time again, the beginning of June, the time when summer is fairest and freshest, the young leaves in the woods tender and transparent enough to let the sunlight through, the ferns just u...

Celia opened her eyes to their widest extent a fortnight later when Mrs. Treverton informed her that she was going to meet her husband, and that, after a few weeks’ holiday, they were coming home toge...

There were no bonfires or floral arches, no rejoicings of tenantry or farm labourers, when John Treverton and his wife came home to Hazlehurst Manor. They came unannounced one fine July afternoon, arr...

Edward Clare came back to his native village a few days later, looking somewhat dilapidated by his campaign in the great metropolis. He had found the gates of literature so beset with aspirants, many ...

After that portrait of Lady Barker, John Treverton drew no more caricatures. It seemed as if he had laid aside the pen of the caricaturist in deference to his wife’s dislike of that somewhat ill-natur...

Christmas was at hand, the first Christmas in Laura’s married life, and to her happy fancy it seemed the most wonderful season that had ever been marked on the calendar of the ages. How could she and ...

The servant’s hall was one of the finest rooms in the Manor House. It was at the back of the house, remote from all the reception rooms, and had been part of a much older building than the Carolian ma...

“A person has called to see you, ma’am. He begs to apologise for coming so late, but he has travelled a long way, and will be very thankful if you can see him.” This is what the butler had whispered i...

Mr. Desrolles left the Manor House a new man. He held his head erect, and bore himself with a lofty air, even before the butler who showed him out. He was respectabilised by a full purse. There was no...

To sit besides a man’s hearth, drink his wine, shoot his pheasants and ride his horses, would in a savage community be incompatible with the endurance of a deadly hatred against that man. The thorough...

John Treverton was out of the doctor’s hands before Christmas was over, and able to appear on his mare Black Bess, with his wife, mounted on the gentlest of grey Arabs, at the lawn meet which was held...

The next day was Sunday. George Gerard was up as soon as it was light, and off for a ramble on the moor before the nine o’clock breakfast. This glimpse of the country was sweet to him even in the blea...

That winter sabbath was a dreary day for John Treverton. He walked home almost in silence, Laura wondering at his thoughtfulness, and speculating anxiously upon the possible reasons for this sudden ch...

A letter was brought to the Vicar just as he was sitting down to his five o’clock dinner that Sunday evening in the bosom of his family. The Vicar dined at five on Sundays, giving himself an hour for ...

It was midnight when John Treverton went upstairs to his study, where there were lighted candles, and a newly-replenished fire; for it was one of his habits to read or write late at night. This evenin...

Although George Gerard had made up his mind to leave Beechampton by the first train on Monday morning, and although he began to feel doubtful as to the purity of Edward Clare’s intentions, and altoget...

After pitching and tossing all night in a manner painfully suggestive of shipwreck, John Treverton and his faithful solicitor arrived at St. Malo early in the afternoon, where the comforts and luxurie...

“Father le Mescam,” said John Treverton, “do you ever remember hearing of a girl who left this town a laundress to become afterwards a celebrity in Paris, as a stage dancer?” “I ought to remember her,...

While John Treverton was in Paris, waiting to obtain proof of Jean Kergariou’s identity with the sailor whose corpse he had seen carried to the Morgue, Laura was sitting alone in her husband’s study, ...

The day after Mr. Clare’s visit brought Laura the expected letter from her husband, a long letter, telling her his adventures at Auray. “So you see, dearest,” he wrote, after he had related all that F...

Mr. Treverton’s hunter was taken back to his loose-box, where he executed an energetic pas seul with his hind legs, in the exuberance of his feelings at being let off his day’s work. Mr. Treverton him...

An inquiry was held at Bow Street next day. Several of the witnesses who had appeared nearly a year ago at the inquest were present, and much of the evidence that had been then given was now repeated....

Mrs. Evitt was very ill. It may be that a prolonged residence on a level with the sewers, and remote from the direct rays of the sun, is not conducive to health or good spirits. Mrs. Evitt had long su...

“My father,” cried Laura, when Mr. Leopold had taken his departure, and she and her husband were left alone, “my father guilty of this cruel murder! A crime of the vilest kind, without a shadow of exc...

On the following afternoon Laura drove straight from the House of Detention to Russell Square. Her interview with her husband had been full of comfort. Mr. Leopold had been with his client, and Mr. Le...

In the forenoon of the following Tuesday John Treverton again appeared before the magistrate, at the Police-court in Bow Street. The same witnesses were present who had been examined on the previous o...

When Desrolles left the village under the shadow of Dartmoor, after bargaining for a handsome annuity, he meant to enter upon a new and delightful stage of existence. The world was changed for him. As...

Mr. and Mrs. Treverton went back to Hazlehurst Manor, and there was much rejoicing among their friends at John Treverton’s escape from the critical position in which the hazards of life had placed him...