A Laodicean : A Story of To-day

Anybody who had closely considered Dare at this time would have discovered that, shortly after the arrival of the Royal Horse Artillery at Markton Barracks, he gave up his room...

Before his attention had long strayed over the incident which romanticized that utilitarian structure, he became aware that he was not the only person who was looking from the t...

‘Very well. Good night.’ And then he left her. In a short time she heard him go down and out of the house to cross to England by the morning steamboat.

Resolving to persevere in the heretofore satisfactory paths of art while life and faculties were left, though every instinct must proclaim that there would be no longer any coll...

Since the receipt of the telegram Paula had been frequently silent; she frequently stayed in alone, and sometimes she became quite gloomy--an altogether unprecedented phase for...

They first visited a large church at the upper end of a square that sloped its gravelled surface to the western shine, and was pricked out with little avenues of young pollard l...

‘O no, no; not any at all. They be very low upon ground, and always will be now, I suppose. It was thoughted worthy of being recorded in history--you’ve read it, sir, no doubt?’

The reply was unexpected. The reporter informed his questioner that in returning from the theatricals, at which he was present, he shared a fly with a gentleman who assured him...

Somerset mastered his disappointment, and the man speedily fetched a ladder, by which means the prisoner of two hours ascended to the roof in safety. During the process he ventu...

‘O no,’ said Somerset, shaking his head, and smiling at the minister’s horror. ‘She’s not that; at least, I think not.. .. She’s a woman; nothing more. Don’t fear for her; all w...

Paula had taken her seat under the fuchsia-trees in such a manner that she could observe all the exits from the salle a manger; but for the present none of the breakfasters emer...

Having previously arranged to pass a quiet evening in his rooms at the Lord Quantock Arms, in reading up chronicles of the castle from the county history, with the view of gathe...

Five hours after the despatch of that telegram Captain De Stancy was rattling along the coast railway of the Riviera from Genoa to Nice. He was returning to England by way of Ma...

‘No. Only be so good as to leave off going further for the present. Indeed, of the two, I would rather have the other sort of address. I mean,’ she hastily added, ‘that what you...

Before Somerset had recovered from his crestfallen sensation at De Stancy’s elusiveness, that officer himself emerged in evening dress from behind a curtain forming a wing to th...

Charlotte had no wish to hear more. On her way home she burst into tears: the entanglement was altogether too much for her to tear asunder, even had not her own instincts been u...

The answer had a significance for Paula, De Stancy, and Charlotte, to which Abner Power was a stranger. The telegraphic request for money, which had been kept a secret from him...

In the interim of waiting for a reply he was one day walking to Markton, when, passing Myrtle Villa, he saw Sir William De Stancy ambling about his garden-path and examining the...

Could it be that De Stancy was going to do what came next in the stage direction--kiss her? Before there was time for conjecture on that point the sound of a very sweet and long...

‘I wish myself out of this!’ breathed Havill to Dare, as he buttoned his coat over his white waistcoat. ‘I told you it was true, but you wouldn’t believe. I wouldn’t she should...

‘Sitting lonely and apathetic without a light, at his own chamber-window at night time, our mechanician frequently observed dark figures descending these steps and ultimately di...

Dare was certainly conscious of something, for he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and gazed around the room; then after a few moments of reflection he drew some article from beneath hi...

‘Early piers, capitals, and mouldings, generally alternated with deep hollows, so as to form strong shadows. Now look under the abacus of this capital; you will find the stone h...

The peculiarly bifold nature of Captain De Stancy, as shown in his conduct at different times, was something rare in life, and perhaps happily so. That mechanical admixture of b...

Though there was something of subterfuge, there was no deep and double subterfuge in all this. De Stancy took no particular interest in his ancestral portraits; but he was enamo...

She approached the edge, looked into the water, and turned away shaking her head. Somerset could for the first time see her face. Though humanly imperfect, as is every face we s...

‘Now I must get everything ready, and order what she will want, as Mrs. Goodman is away. What will she want? Dinner would be best--she has had no lunch, I know; or tea perhaps,...

‘But consider, dear Miss Birch, the advantage to a poor artist the sight of her would be: if you could hold the door ajar it would be worth five pounds to me, and a good deal to...

Havill said that he had. ‘But possibly not so completely as you have,’ he added, again smiling fiercely. Somerset did not quite like the insinuation, and the two speakers parted...

It was the darkest of November weather, when the days are so short that morning seems to join with evening without the intervention of noon. The sky was lined with low cloud, wi...

The architect remained in the background till the dance drew to a conclusion, and then he went forward. The circumstance of having met him by accident once already that day seem...

PREFACE CHAPTERS BOOK THE FIRST. GEORGE SOMERSET. I - XV. BOOK THE SECOND. DARE AND HAVILL. I - VII. BOOK THE THIRD. DE STANCY. I - XI. BOOK THE FOURTH. SOMERSET, DARE, AND DE S...

Among those whose ears had been reached by the hurrahs of these idlers was a man in silence and solitude, far out of the town. He was leaning over a gate that divided two meads...