A Strange World: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 3)

WHEN the supper-table was ready, the servant girl ran to the porch and rang a large bell, which was kept under one of the benches—a bell that pealed out shrilly over the silent...

MORE than a year had gone by since Maurice Clissold had said farewell to Borcel End, and he had not yet found leisure to revisit that peaceful homestead. He had corresponded wit...

THE dinner party is over, the county families have retired to their several abodes. They are dispersed, like the soft summer mist which has melted from the moorland with the bro...

WHILE the Squire of Penwyn surveyed his flower and fern-bedecked board, and congratulated himself that he was a power in the land, his lodge-keeper, the woman with tawny skin, s...

IF any one had asked Maurice Clissold why he had bared old wounds in the dreamy restfulness of that June afternoon in the hayfield, and why he had chosen Martin Trevanard for hi...

MAURICE CLISSOLD keenly scrutinized Bridget Trevanard’s face as they sat at supper that evening. Muriel’s look of horror at the mention of her mother’s name had inspired unpleas...

THIS happy easy-going life of Maurice Clissold’s was suddenly disturbed by a letter from Martin Trevanard. Some time had elapsed without any communication from the young man whe...

JUSTINA had made a success at the Royal Albert Theatre. The newspapers were tolerably unanimous in their verdict. The more æsthetic and critical journals even gave her their app...

CHURCHILL was waiting at the inn door to receive his wife. He had ridden across on his favourite horse Tarpan—a long-necked, raking bay, over sixteen hands, and a great jumper—a...

‘He was the best of all,’ she said; ‘Mr. Balfour we saw very little of after he grew up, being the youngest to marry and leave home; Mr. James was a kind, easy-going young fello...

MR. CLISSOLD spent the morning sauntering about the farm, and lounging in one of the hill-side meadows with Martin. The young man was depressed by the sense of approaching calam...

THE image of that white-robed figure, pallid face, and ebon hair haunted Maurice Clissold throughout the day, though his day was very pleasant, and Martin Trevanard the most che...

MAURICE CLISSOLD had not forgotten that entry in the register at Seacomb Church, and one afternoon, when Matthew, Justina, and he were cosily seated at the clumsy old lodging-ho...

MAURICE CLISSOLD sat for some time, smoking and musing by the hearth—sat till the light faded outside the diamond-paned windows, and the shadows deepened within the room. He mig...

NOTHING could be more perfect than that serenity which ruled the domestic life of Penwyn Manor. The judgment which Maurice Clissold had formed of that life, as seen from the out...

THEY were in Madge’s dressing-room, that spacious, many-windowed chamber, with its closed venetians, which was cool and shadowy even on a blazing August day like this. They were...

MR. CLISSOLD entered the porch, scattering the affrighted fowls right and left. As they sped cackling away, the house door, which had stood ajar, was opened wider by a middle-ag...

CHURCHILL PENWYN looked something the worse for that half-hour’s excitement overnight when the Manor House party assembled at breakfast, between eight and nine next morning. The...

THE advent of the Manor House family made life all the more pleasant to Mr. Clissold at Borcel End. It imparted variety to his existence, and the homely comfort of the farmhouse...

AUGUST came—a real August—with cloudless blue skies, and scorching noontides, and a brief storm now and then to clear the atmosphere. The yellow corn-fields basked in the sun’s...