A Terrible Secret: A Novel

Half an hour's rapid gallop had brought Edwards, the valet, to Powyss Place. The stately mansion, park, lawn, and terraces, lay bathed in the silvery shower of moonlight. From t...

Mr. Darrell had consented--what was there he could have refused his darling? He had consented, hiding the bitter pang it cost him, deep in his own quiet heart. It was the loss o...

To-morrow came, gray and overcast. The fine weather which had lasted almost since their leaving New York showed signs of breaking up. Miss Stuart's ankle was so much better that...

It had been a week of ceaseless rain--the whole country side was sodden. The month was March, and after an unusually severe January and February, a "soft spell" had come, the ra...

"And after to-night we will all have a rest, thank Heaven! and _my_ pilgrimage will come to an end. A fortnight at Powyss Place before you go up to London, my dear Mrs. Stuart--...

Edith went back to the work-room in Oxford Street, to the old treadmill life of ceaseless sewing, and once more a lull came into her disturbed existence--the lull preceding the...

Before relating that peculiar first meeting, let me premise that Edith Darrell's mother had been born a Miss Eleanor Stuart, the daughter of a rich New York merchant, who had fa...

The pleasant days went on--April went out--May came in. On the tenth of May, the Stuart family, Sir Victor Catheron, and Lady Helena Powyss were to sail from New York for Liverp...

Two weeks later, as June's golden days were drawing to a close, five of Lady Helena's guests departed from Powyss Place. One remained behind. The Stuart family, with the devoted...

"No words can be strong enough to reprehend your conduct, Victor. You have acted disgracefully; you are listening, sir,--disgracefully, I say, to your cousin Inez. And you are t...

Their places were as on the day before--Sir Victor in the possession of Trix, Charley with Edith. But the baronet's gloom was gone--hope filled his heart. She did _not_ love her...

The last light of the July day had faded out, and a hot, murky night settled down over London. The air was stifling in the city; out in the suburbs you still caught a breath, fr...

The sun was just rising over the million roofs and spires of the great city, as Charley's hansom dashed up to the door of Langham's hotel. He ran up to his father's room, and on...

Half-past four of a delightful June afternoon, and two young ladies sit at two large, lace-draped windows, overlooking a fashionable Mayfair street, alternately glancing over th...

The last red ray of the sunset had faded, the silver stars were out, the yellow moon shone serenely over land and sea, before Edith awoke--awoke with a smile on her lips from a...

Firelight falling on soft velvet carpet, where white lily buds trail along azure ground, on chairs of white-polished wood that glitters like ivory, with puffy of seats of blue s...

"Two waltzes," said Trix, counting on her fingers; "that's two; one cracovienne, that's three; les lanciers, that's four; one galop, that's five; and one polka quadrille, that's...

She had darkened her chamber; she had forced herself resolutely to sleep. But the small hours had come before she had succeeded, and it was close upon ten when the dark eyes ope...

All Edith's shortcomings were long ago forgotten and forgiven--it is in Edith's way to inspire ardent love. Trixy loves her as dearly, as warmly as she had ever done--she hugs,...

With, a baronet! Only yesterday, as it were, she was darning hose, and ironing linen at home, going about the dismal house slipshod and slatternly. Now she is in the midst of a...

An hour later, when Lady Helena softly opened the door and came in, she found them still so, his weak head resting in her arms as she knelt, her bowed face hidden, her falling t...

Half an hour had passed and Sir Victor did not return. Edith still remained at the piano, the gleam of the candles falling upon her thoughtful face, playing the weird "Moonlight...

Miss Nellie Seton came early next morning to see her friend, Mr. Charley Stuart, off. He is looking rather pale as he bids them good-by--the vision of Edith's eyes upturned to h...

In a very genteel lodging-house, in the very genteel neighborhood of Russell Square, early in the afternoon of a September day, a young girl stands impatiently awaiting the retu...

"Sir Victor Catheron going to marry our Edith! Dear me! I am sure I thought it was you, Trixy, all the time. And Edith will be a great lady after all. Dear me!"

But the driving-party did not come off. The ruins of Eastlake Abbey were unvisited that day, at least. For while Edith and Trixy's somewhat unpleasant interview was taking place...

As he descended the stairs he encountered Nixon and a veiled lady in black ascending. He looked at her keenly--she was tall and slender; beyond that, through the heavy crape vei...

Six days later, Sir Victor Catheron and his aunt came home. These six days had passed very quietly, very pleasantly, to Edith. She was not in the least lonely; the same sense of...

The middle of the day is past before one by one they straggle down. Breakfast awaits each newcomer, hot and tempting. Trix eats hers with a relish. Trix possesses one of the chi...

It was half-past twelve, by all the clocks and watches of Powyss Place. Miss Stuart sat alone, in the pleasant boudoir or sitting-room, assigned her, her foot on an ottoman, a n...

Jane Pool was called. A suppressed murmur of deepest interest ran through the room at the name of this witness. It was understood her evidence would have the deepest bearing on...

"You villain!" he shouts, hoarse with amaze and fury; "stand back, or by the living Lord I'll have your life! You scoundrel, how dare you lay hands on my wife!"

Three days after, on Thursday, the fifth of June, Lady Helena Powyss gave a very large dinner-party, followed by a ball in honor of her American guests. When it is your good for...

Three days after, a long and stately procession passed slowly through the great gates, under the lofty Norman archway, bearing to the Catheron vaults the body of Ethel, last lad...

Miss Stuart went back to the workroom, and to the dozen or more young women there assembled. If she was a shade paler than her wont they were not likely to notice it--if she was...

She replaced the desk in the trunk, and, walking to the window, drew back the curtain and looked out. Over emerald lawn and coppice, tall trees and brilliant flowers, the Octobe...

"In all the annals of mysterious crime (began the editor, with intense evident relish), nothing more mysterious, or more awful, has ever been known, than the recent tragedy at C...

He had not overheard a word, he had not tried to overhear; but he had seen them together--that was enough. He had reached the spot only a moment before their parting, and had st...

Eight days after the burial of Lady Catheron, several events, occurred that wrought the seething excitement of Chesholm to boiling-over point--events talked of for many an after...

She stands for a moment paralyzed--struck dumb by a horror too great for word or cry. Then she rushes to the door, along the passages, into the midst of the startled household l...

There were a great number of passengers on board--every cabin, every berth, was filled. Every country under Heaven, it seemed, was represented. After the first two or three days...

Charley Stuart! The original of the pictured face that lies over her heart by night and day. Charley--unchanged, calm, handsome, eminently self-possessed as ever, looking at her...

His wife and son! The county stood astounded. And it had been a dead secret. Dreadful! And Inez Catheron was jilted? Shocking! And _she_ was a soap-boiler's daughter? Horrible!...

Charley can sing a little still. He is to lose Edith. Sir Victor Catheron is to win and wear; but as she is not Lady Catheron yet, Mr. Stuart postpones despair and suicide until...

At first they thought her dead--but it was not death. She awoke from that long, death-like swoon as morning broke--so near unto death that it seemed the turning of a hair might...

You would hardly have thought so to look at her as she lay, deathly white, deathly still. But as the day broke she had awakened from a long sleep, the most natural and refreshin...

That ride--all her life it came back to her like a bad nightmare. She kept her eyes turned away as much as she could from that rigid form and ghastly face opposite, but in spite...

"He will not urge it. He knows how obdurate you are, how fruitless it would be. Ah, Edith! you are a terribly haughty, self-willed girl. He will not detain you a moment--he wish...

I.--Miss Darrell II.--A Night in the Snow III.--Trixy's Party IV.--"Under the Gaslight" V.--Old Copies of the "Courier" VI.--One Moonlight Night VII.--Short and Sentimental VIII...

I.--At Madame Mirebeau's, Oxford Street II.--Edith III.--How they Met IV.--How they Parted V.--The Telling of the Secret VI.--The last Ending of the Tragedy VII.--Two Years Afte...