A House Divided Against Itself (Complete)

It had seemed to Frances, as it appears naturally to all who have little experience, that a man who was so ill as Captain Gaunt must get better or get worse without any of the l...

Frances went to Portland Place next day. She went with great reluctance, feeling that to be thus plunged into the atmosphere of the other side was intolerable. Had she been able...

Lady Markham did not forget her promise. Whatever else a great lady may forget in these days, her sick people, her hospitals, she is sure never to forget. She went early to the...

When one has made up one’s mind to reopen a painful subject after dinner, the preliminary meal is not usually a very pleasant one; nor, with the tremor of preparation in one’s m...

The Warings had been settled at Bordighera almost as long as Frances could remember. She had known no other way of living than that which could be carried on under the painted r...

The subjects of these consultations were at the moment in the full course of a sonata, and oblivious of everything else in the world but themselves, their music, and their conce...

Waring went out with Constance when the sun got low in the skies. He took a much longer walk than was at all usual to him, and pointed out to her many points of view. The paths...

The days ran on for about a week with a suppressed and agitating expectation in them, which seemed to Frances to blur and muddle all the outlines, so that she could not recollec...

The day was warm, and there was no shade; out of the olive woods which they had left behind, and where all was soft coolness and freshness, they had emerged into a piece of road...

Captain Gaunt called next day to bring, he said, a message from his mother. She sent Mr Waring a newspaper which she thought he might like to see, an English weekly newspaper, w...

Frances slept very little all night; her mind was jarred and sore almost at every point. The day with all its strange experiences, and still more strange suggestions, had left h...

Frances had not succeeded in resolving this question in her mind when Thursday came. The two intervening days had been very quiet. She had gone with her mother to several shops,...

Frances remembered little of the journey after it was over, though she was keenly conscious of everything at the time, if there can be any keen consciousness of a thing which is...

It was natural that this occurrence should take a great hold of the girl’s mind. It was not the first time that she had speculated concerning their life. A life which one has al...

Waring was not so indifferent to the looks or feelings of his daughter as appeared. After all, he was not entirely buried in his books. To Frances, who had grown up by his side...

Within the first few days, a great many of these conversations took place, and Frances gradually formed an idea to herself--not, perhaps, very like reality, but yet an idea--of...

“What is this I hear about Waring?” said General Gaunt, walking out upon the loggia, where the Durants were sitting, on the same memorable afternoon on which all that has been a...

Frances ate a mournful little dinner alone, after the agitations to which she had been subject. Her mother did not return; and Markham, who had been expected up to the last mome...

“I found him in the mood; so I thought it best to strike while the iron was hot,” Constance said. She had settled down languidly in a favourite corner, as if she had never been...

The dinner, it need scarcely be said, was a strange one. Except in Constance, who was perfectly cool, and Claude, who was more concerned about a possible draught from a window t...

The crisis, however, was averted--“mercifully,” as Lady Markham said. Dr Howard from Southampton--whom she had thought of only by chance, on the spur of the moment, as a way of...

“No, indeed. I wish I did--at least, that is not what I mean. But I wish you did not think it necessary to stay in a place like this. Why should you shut yourself out from the w...

Frances dropped the hand which she had laid upon his arm. “It shall be exactly as you please, papa. I seem to know a great deal--oh, a great deal more than I knew at dinner. I d...

Next morning, Constance, seated as usual in the loggia, which was now, as the weather grew hot, veiled with an awning, heard--her ears being very quick, and on the alert for eve...

“Yes, I wish you had not said anything, Frances: not that it matters very much. I don’t suppose he was in earnest, or, at all events, he would have changed his mind before eveni...

The question which disturbed Frances, which nobody knew or cared for, was just as little likely to gain attention next day as it had been on the evening of Mr Winterbourn’s deat...

“She has come to stay. She is my sister; papa’s daughter as much as I am. She has come--home.” Frances was a little uncertain about the word, and it was only “_a casa_” that she...

“Yes, I hope you will come and see me often. Oh yes, I shall miss my sister; but then I shall have all the more of papa. Good night. Good night, Captain Gaunt. No; I don’t sketc...

Nothing happened of any importance before their return to Eaton Square. Markham, hopping about with a queer sidelong motion he had, his little eyes screwed up with humorous mean...

There was no more said for a day or two about the journey. But that it was to take place, that Markham was waiting till his step-sister was ready, and that Frances was making he...

It is a common impression that happiness and unhappiness are permanent states of mind, and that for long tracts of our lives we are under the continuous sway of one or other of...

After this, for about a fortnight, Captain Gaunt was very often visible in Eaton Square. He dined next evening with Lady Markham and Frances--Sir Thomas, who scarcely counted, h...

“Where is George? I scarcely ever see him,” said the General, in querulous tones. “He is always after that girl of Waring’s. Why don’t you try to keep him at home?”

The Priory was in the Isle of Wight, and it was Markham’s house. It was not a very great house, nor was it medieval and mysterious, as an unsophisticated imagination naturally e...

Lady Markham received young Gaunt with the most gracious kindness: had his mother seen him seated in the drawing-room at Eaton Square, with Frances hovering about him full of pl...

Mrs Clarendon lived in one of the great houses in Portland Place which fashion has abandoned. It was very silent, wrapped in that stillness and decorum which is one of the chief...

Gaunt did not appear again at Eaton Square for two or three days,--not, indeed, till after the great event of Frances’ history had taken place--the going to court, which had fil...

And Constance, too, had found it amusing--she did not hesitate to acknowledge that to herself. She had got a great deal of diversion out of these six weeks. There had been nothi...

The walk with Constance, though he had set out upon it reluctantly, had done Waring great good. He was comparatively rehabilitated in his own eyes. Between her and him there was...

The Winterbourns came next day: he to the best room in the house, a temperature carefully kept up to sixty-five degrees, and the daily attentions of the excellent doctor, who, L...

Constance Waring had not been enjoying herself in Bordighera. Her amusement indeed came to an end with the highly exciting yet disagreeable scene which took place between hersel...

As it turned out, Frances had not the courage. Mr Waring strolled into the loggia shortly after Miss Durant had left her. He smiled when he heard of her visit, and asked what ne...

Lady Markham’s story was one which was very well known to Society--to which everything is known--though it had remained so long a secret, and was still a mystery to one of her c...

He was sitting with Lady Markham in the room which was her special sanctuary. She did not call it her boudoir--she was not at all inclined to _bouder_; but it answered to that r...

Lady Markham was a woman, everybody knew, who never hesitated when she realised a thing to be her duty, especially in all that concerned hospitals and the sick. She appeared by...

The revelation which thus burst upon Mr Durant was known throughout the length and breadth of Bordighera, as that good man said, before the day was out. The expression was not s...

There were voices in the drawing-room as Frances ran up-stairs, which warned her that her own appearance in her morning dress would be undesirable there. She went on with a sens...

qualities in her mother; and still more it troubled her to think what, in case of coming to some point of conflict, she should do? How would she get out of it? Would it be only...

Frances became accustomed to the presence of young Ramsay after this. He appeared almost every day, very often in the afternoon, eager for tea, and always disposed to inquire fo...