A Life Sentence: A Novel

Mrs. Vane left Parker at the hotel with a message for the General, should he appear, that she was going to her dentist's and thence to her brother's lodgings. But she and Sabina...

Enid's conscience was not at rest. During her interviews with Mr. Evandale she was inclined to think that he knew everything, understood everything--even the difference between...

"I don't know how it is," grumbled the General, "but Enid looks scarcely any better than she did before this precious engagement of hers. You made me think that she would be per...

Mrs. Vane, on leaving her brother's lodgings, drove straight to Camden Town. She had reasons for wishing to see Sabina Meldreth. The house was a little difficult to find, becaus...

Cynthia had already despatched a little note to Hubert asking him to visit her at a certain hour that afternoon--hence the certainty with which she spoke of his visit to her fat...

When the light was fading a little, there was a new sound in Hubert Lepel's sick-room--the rustle of a silk dress, the tripping of little high-heeled shoes across the floor. Cyn...

At that moment Enid recalled, by one instinctive flash of memory, the words that Maurice Evandale had said to her. If ever she saw "the ghost" again, she was to speak to it--she...

The newspapers had cried out that Hubert Lepel's two years were a miserably insufficient punishment for the crime of which he had been guilty; but to Cynthia it seemed as if tho...

Cynthia, unconscious of the plots of which she was at present the innocent centre, was meanwhile contending with a sensation of profound discouragement, mental and physical. She...

"Let the man drive on for a few minutes while you tell me the reason why you think you are watched," said Cynthia, suspecting panic; "he cannot be going far out of the way, and,...

Westwood had scouted Cynthia's notion that the woman in black who seemed to be following them could possibly be a spy; nevertheless he meditated upon it with some anxiety, and r...

Early in the sweet June morning--sweet and fair although it brooded over London, the smokiest city in the world--Cynthia was again walking in Kensington Gardens. She had not gon...

Maurice Evandale was obliged to go to Beechfield that evening; but, before he went, he explained his position more fully to Miss Vane than he had thought it necessary to do with...

"Why, good gracious, child," she said, "what have you come at this hour of the day for? I'm delighted to see you; but I never heard of such a thing! Arriving at nine o'clock in...

"'Cynthia Westwood'--is that your name?" said Mrs. Rumbold. "Dear me, I always thought that it was just 'Jane' or 'Jenny!' Wouldn't it be better to change it, and call her somet...

A sudden hush fell upon the group. Each looked at the others aghast. The general opinion was that Mr. Lepel's fever had returned upon him and that he was raving. But at least th...

When Hubert Lepel quitted Beechfield, a sudden calm, almost a stagnation of interest, seemed to fall upon the place. Mrs. Vane was said to be "less strong" than usual; the sprin...

Cynthia looked round at her visitor with a sort of timidity which she did not often exhibit. He was apparently about sixty years of age, broad-shouldered, and muscularly built,...

Cynthia's father did not get his question answered, because at that moment a thundering knock at the front-door announced the return of Madame, and there was rather a hasty stru...

"Why should I see what is the matter with her more than anybody else?" asked Hubert, who was moving restlessly from place to place, now halting before the window of his sister's...

"A Grand Morning Concert will be given on Thursday, June 25th, at Ebury's Rooms, by the pupils of Madame della Scala. By kind permission of Mr. Mapleson, the following _artistes...

Hubert was sadly puzzled by Cynthia's manner to him at this time. She seemed to have lost her bright spirits; she was grave and even depressed; now and then she manifested a sor...

A little bustle was heard outside the door; and then the doctor came in. He was a middle-aged man, tall, spare, thoughtful-looking, a little abrupt in manner, but with a kindly...

Hubert felt that he had been betrayed into displaying an excess of emotion very foreign to the character of the cynic and the worldling which he was desirous to assume. Circumst...

The little village of Beechfield, like all other villages, had its dark corners where vice and misery reigned supreme. In old times Mr. and Mrs. Rumbold--good people as they wer...

Enid had the look of a veritable snow-queen thought Hubert, as he came upon her a day or two later in a little _salon_ opening out of the drawing-room, and found her gazing out...

The door had been opened to Cynthia by a strange servant. She asked if Mr. Lepel was at home--a conventionalism of which she immediately repented. Was he well enough to see anyb...

For a moment even the stout-hearted Rector was appalled. But Enid, although she was watching him intently, could not read anything but unfaltering sympathy and ready cheer in th...

It was not much after five, and the days were very long. Mrs. Vane found that she could reach East Winstead by seven, and, allowing for one hour at St. Elizabeth's, could be bac...

Cynthia came softly into the room. She looked timidly towards Hubert's chair, then rushed forward and rang the bell violently. She had had some fear of the result of Enid's visi...

Cynthia had, as Sabina suspected, gone straight to her father when she left Russell Square. Some time before he had let her know that he was still in England, and had sent her h...

Hubert stopped short. If Miss Vane had been looking at him, she would have seen that his face flushed deeply and then turned very pale. But she herself, with her gold eye-glasse...

Hubert stood before the Rector's wife in a pretty little room opening out upon the Rectory garden. Jenny had been left in the hall, seated on one of the high-backed wooden chair...

Hubert had been worried and overworked of late; it had appeared to him a good thing that he should spend a few of the spring days at Beechfield, and try to recover in the societ...

Flossy's first instinctive desire was to rise from her sofa and receive Sabina Meldreth standing--not at all by way of politeness, but as an intimation that the interview was no...

"Yes," said Cynthia, in a dry matter-of-fact way; "I doubt everybody's word. Nobody tells the whole truth in this agreeable world. You forget that I am not a baby--that I have k...

Her voice was quite even and expressionless, but Hubert's face contracted at the sound of her words as if they hurt him. He raised his cigar mechanically to his lips, found that...

"I have come to answer your note myself," said Enid to her cousin, as he made his way with faltering steps into the room. "I hope that you are better now?"

She was in Hubert's sitting-room. Mr. Lepel had the drawing-room floor of a large and fine old house in Russell square--a floor which contained two drawing-rooms opening out of...

Hubert Lepel had accepted his sister's invitation to Beechfield Hall for two nights only; but, as he had given her to understand, he was quite ready to come again, supposing of...

Cynthia West made a delightful picture as she stood in the glow of the firelight and the rose-shaded lamps. Her dress, of deep red Indian silk, partly covered with puffings of s...

The proceedings relating to Westwood's trial and Hubert Lepel's confession naturally excited great interest. The whole matter had to be investigated once more; and it could not...

"Oh, you two are here together!" There was a note of surprise in Miss Vane's voice as she turned the corner of a great group of foliage-plants, and came upon brother and sister...

He left Sabina, who was sobbing hysterically as she sat huddled up in the chair on which he had placed her, and came to Enid's side. She turned to him with sorrowful appeal.

"Yes," answered the girl with a quickness which sounded abrupt, but which, as could easily be seen, was born of shyness and not of incivility. "You can get me an engagement if y...

"Let me fetch Sister Louisa or the Reverend Mother to you?" she cried. "They know all about it--as far as anybody can know anything. You--you are one of her friends, perhaps? Oh...

When Mr. Evandale knocked at Mrs. Meldreth's door, he was aware of a slight bustle within, followed by the sound of voices in low-toned conference; then came a rather sharply-to...

A curious little thrill of emotion--half sigh, half sob--ran through the crowded court. Even the most callous, the most world-hardened, of human beings cannot hear unmoved the v...

Beechfield Hall was the name of the old manor-house in which the Vanes had lived for many generations. The present head of the family, General Richard Vane, was a man of fifty-f...

himself, not to ask after her. And how delicate she was looking! What was the matter with her? It was not merely that she was thinner and paler, but that an indefinable change h...

"He is there," she said--"he is coming in. The London papers will arrive in half an hour. Hubert, don't leave him to learn the news from the papers or from his London lawyer."

Eight years had passed away since the tragedy that brought the little village of Beechfield into luckless notoriety. During those eight years what changes had taken place! Even...

Hubert Lepel had promised to spend Christmas Day at Beechfield, but for some unexplained reason he stayed away, sending at the last moment a telegram which his sister felt to be...