A Duel

That evening Dr. Twelves dined with a fellow Scot, J. Andrew McTavish, of McTavish & Brown. Mr. McTavish lived in Mecklenberg Square. Although a bachelor he liked plenty of hous...

Mr. Isaac Luker folded his hands together with a gesture which suggested the act of prayer. He seemed singularly out of place in his environment. They were in the apartment whic...

Messrs. McTavish & Brown, solicitors, of Southampton Row, London, W.C., had a large, sound and lucrative family connection. They numbered among their clients several people of r...

Rather a curious state of things prevailed in Mrs. Lamb's residence in Connaught Square. The largest and best regulated establishments are apt to be disorganised when festival h...

Mr. Talfourd twiddled the bunch of La France roses between his fingers with a smile which was scarcely one of satisfaction. They were very fine roses--in just that stage of burs...

She stood just inside the threshold of the room, with the handle of the open door between her fingers, and listened. She had moved so noiselessly that, quite possibly, to the ea...

Like some other persons, so long as she had her own way, and nothing occurred to annoy her, Isabel could be quite agreeable. Now that Nannie was laid low, and Dr. Twelves accord...

"I think she's pretty, as I said. You may think her beautiful. I daresay plenty of men would; that sort of thing's a question of taste. I tell you what I do think beautiful--tha...

Mrs. Gregory Lamb's "At Home" was crowded by rather a nondescript gathering. The lady's hospitality was scarcely of the kind which discriminates. Had she set herself to pick and...

A hand was raised on the other side of the door and brought smartly against the glass. The whole panel shivered; the blow would only have to be repeated two or three times to de...

In the evening of that day Margaret Wallace and Harry Talfourd dined with Dr. Twelves. The young lady, who throughout the day had remained in a curious mood, was indisposed to a...

When Isabel left Cuthbert Grahame's room her brain was in a tumult. She had so much of which to think that she found it hard to think at all. The discovery that his wealth was s...

There were five of them assembled in Margaret Wallace's sitting-room. Margaret herself, in a linen gown of cornflower-blue, the product of her own deft fingers, which became her...

"So you've come, have you, at last! I suppose that old hag told you you had better before I came to you? I should have come in half an hour."

She had slept well; Isabel admitted so much. She suspected something else, that the morning was far advanced. There was that in the atmosphere which conveyed that impression. Ap...

She raised her head to listen, thinking that her senses must be playing her a trick. No; it certainly was the sound of wheels, coming nearer and nearer. Some one was driving fas...

On the evening of that same day, at the door of Mr. Isaac Luker's little house in that _cul-de-sac_ near Stamford Street, some one knocked, in a rather unusual manner, as if aft...

The next morning, between eleven o'clock and noon, Margaret went out visiting. She had paid much attention to her costume, more than she was wont to do. Her mind travelled back...

Isabel crossed to her own room, put on her hat, smiling at herself in the looking-glass as she arranged it to her satisfaction, then went downstairs, and out of the house withou...

"It's swollen; it looks as if it were going to be an awkward business. Your boot and stocking will have to be cut away; but there's no time to do it now--moments are precious. Y...

Nannie's appearance and the vigour of her speech, both of which were probably a trifle unexpected, seemed to take Isabel somewhat aback. It was not unlikely that a rapid debate...

Between the trees the darkness was as if you might have cut it. Where the lantern looked there were momentary revelations as they strode along. Its rays seemed to cut pieces out...

The doctor took her soft hands in his well-worn ones, regarding her from under the pent-house of his overhanging brows with his keen hawk's eyes, which age had not perceptibly d...

When Mr. Isaac Luker and his client, Mrs. Gregory Lamb, arrived at the small roadside station, in the county of Forfar, towards which they had been journeying throughout the day...

"It's just as well that some one should think so. Dollie, sometimes I'm very near to the conviction that it's no good--that nothing's any good, and, especially, that I'm no good...

Isabel waited till the rat-tat was repeated a second time, then she went down to the front door. Since Mrs. Macconichie and her husband were both out, and she had the house to h...

At the house in Connaught Square Mrs. Lamb had to knock and ring four times without, apparently, attracting the attention of any one inside. She was meditating gaining admittanc...

Harry Talfourd hurried Margaret Wallace into the street as fast as circumstances permitted, while the guests at Mrs. Lamb's were looking at each other, exchanging whispers, aski...

Verbal discussion was plainly useless; it was soon made sufficiently clear that nothing short of physical force would persuade that driver. Situated as they were it was not easy...

In appearance the doctor had altered but little since we saw him last. He was the same little wizened old man, with the slight stoop, and the sunken eyes which looked out so kee...

It is possible that Mrs. Lamb knew very little about the charge at Balaclava. It is certain that she had never heard of the phrase with which the critical French general has bee...

Before the woman who called herself his wife went down to her breakfast she paid him a morning call. He had had a more restful night than usual, so that he was in an exceptional...

"Isn't it? I don't know what it is then. If we had realised her cleverness from the first we might have been prepared for her; she might have met her match. It is only by fully...

In the room was the same faint, luminous glow which had been noticeable in the hall and on the stairs. There could have been no more eloquent testimony of her condition than the...

For possibly a couple of minutes she continued on the doorstep immobile, as if she not only did not understand what had happened, but as if she also still failed to realise that...

On Isabel's return to the house she was greeted on the threshold by Martha, the Martha Blair whose connection with Gregory Lamb's present place of residence seemed destined to h...

her to such an extent that in any case it would ultimately have produced insanity. Her reason was already tottering when she was brought face to face with Margaret Wallace on th...

When Mrs. Gregory Lamb was brought back out of that fit by which she had been overtaken she was lying on Cuthbert Grahame's bed, on which he had lived for so long, and died at h...