A tragedy of love and hate

The great bough of a spreading maple tree was swaying to and fro in the summer wind, a shapely bough covered with green leaves. On it sat a little bird, swaying with the branch,...

In the meantime they had carried the body of the hapless lady to her own chamber; the weeping, terrified servants filled the room, and Mrs. Glynn, the housekeeper, armed with au...

Three days had passed since the tragedy that cast such gloom over the whole neighborhood had occurred; three long, dreary days. Outside the world was in full beauty, fair, smili...

It was the night before the funeral, and Sir Ronald sat in his study alone. His servants spoke of him in lowered voices, for since the terrible day of the murder the master of A...

They went through the silent house without another word, through the long corridors so lately gay with the sound of laughing voices and the lustre of perfumed silken gowns. The...

In the picturesque and beautiful country of Loamshire they still tell of the funeral, the extraordinary crowd of people assembled to pay the last mark of homage to Lady Clarice...

The neighborhood of Leeholme was essentially an aristocratic one; in fact, Leeholme calls itself a patrician country, and prides itself on its freedom of all manufacturing towns...

Most of the young people in this pretty and aristocratic neighborhood of Leeholme were children together. Sir Ronald Alden could not have remembered when he first saw Clarice Se...

Sir Ronald sang those words to himself as he rode back home, the face of Lady Hermione before him all the way, her voice in his ears, the glad sunshine, the whispering leaves, t...

Perhaps if any man or woman were asked if they were willing to tell a lie they would most indignantly deny it. Perhaps most people, even though they be guilty of some trifling a...

All the _élite_ of the country were present, for though Clarice Severn was perhaps more beautiful, no one was so dearly loved as the charming, gifted daughter of Lord Lorriston.

It seemed as though the sun loved her, for it had never shone so bright or so warm as when it peeped into her chamber to wake my lady on her birthday. The flowers loved her, for...

Then he would have told her the story of his love, the story that rose from his heart to his lips in a burning torrent of words; but at that moment, over the roses came the soun...

It is seldom that a tragedy happens all at once; there are circumstances that lead up to it. These circumstances are seldom as exciting as the tragedy itself. The details of wha...

The sun shone round him, the flowers bloomed fair, the sweet south wind whispered of all bright things; but Sir Ronald never raised his despairing face to the summer heavens.

Time did not bring comfort to Sir Ronald Alden; the blow he had received was too heavy and too cruel. He felt not only annoyed, but aggrieved, that Clarice knew his secret.

Sir Ronald went home again. He found little or no change in that quiet neighborhood. One of the visits he paid was to Mount Severn, where he met with a welcome that would have g...

“People wonder why you do not get married,” said his friend, Captain Pierson, to him one day. “They tell a story about you here that I, for one, do not believe.”

Sir Ronald went gently to her and called her by name. Whatever her dream might be, it was so deep that she had not heard the sound of his footsteps or the rustling of the boughs.

Sir Ronald never knew how the news of his engagement was received by the “ladye he loved.” The Lorristons went away soon afterward to pay a long-promised round of visits. He did...

They went abroad! They made the usual Continental tour, and then returned to Aldenmere. Lady Clarice was happy as the day was long. No bird singing in the shade of summer trees...

So during all the wedding festivities with which the whole country rang the Lorristons were away; there was not even the civility of a letter exchanged between them. People did...

“Let me ask you a plain question, Lady Hermione. Perhaps this conversation had been better left alone. Having commenced it, I must know more than you have said. You must not ref...

While she lived Lady Hermione never forgot the look of anguish that he gave her; a long, lingering, steady gaze such as a dying man fixes at times on the face of a beloved wife...

“Three years ago I called you and gave you a letter to take to Leeholme Park; it was for Lady Hermione Lorriston, and you promised me to place it in her own hands.”

From that time Sir Ronald Alden changed so completely that he was hardly to be recognized as the same man. He ceased to struggle for content; he said to himself that a curse was...

Intense rapture filled the heart of Sir Ronald Alden when he read that little note. He had been so long in the night of sorrow, so long in the wide, waste waters of affliction,...

Would any one recognize gloomy Aldenmere in the bright, sunny place where perpetual summer seems to reign? Would any one believe this to be the home where the dark shadow of mur...

Four years have passed since Sir Ronald took Lady Hermione home to Aldenmere. May blossoms are falling now, and the white acacia is all in bloom. England holds no fairer picture...

“He will never forget her,” said Lady Hermione, slowly, as the door closed after the unhappy man. “Oh, Ronald, if there be such a thing as haunting, do you think she haunts him?”

The spirit of unrest did not leave Kenelm Eyrle. When he met Sir Ronald and Lady Hermione at lunch he looked very pale, ill, and determined. He held Lady Hermione’s soft, white...

On this bright September morning Sir Ronald sat in his library alone, the open letter in his hand, considering within himself whether he should decline without saying one word t...

“No,” replied Sir Ronald, in answer to his wife’s question, “I would rather that you did not go to London with me. I shall like to bid you farewell here, so that my last picture...

The Towers, Kenelm Eyrle’s inheritance, was a large estate. Perhaps the prettiest and most picturesque part of it was that called Dower House, a large, open, healthy, airy house...

Miss Hansen was some time absent, and Kenelm Eyrle awaited her return in grim silence. He did not, as some men would have done, amuse himself by looking around the room, seeking...

Never since Clarice, Lady Alden, died had Kenelm Eyrle given so much thought to another woman. The beautiful, sorrowful Spanish face did not haunt him as does the face of one mo...

Praise from a woman’s lips is sweet to man. As a matter of course, when this incense is offered they look superior and pretend that it is not needful, yet it is none the less ag...

“He will marry the widow as sure as fate,” he thought to himself, “and we shall have something like old times at ‘The Towers.’ Mourning all his life for a dead woman who did not...

Many pictures lived in Kenelm Eyrle’s mind, one of the fairest was that of the balcony, with its twisted pillars and odorous flowers, where he sat that morning to hear Lady Pelh...

“I was sixteen and a half when my mother died. In England I should have been looked upon as a mere girl; in Spain I was a woman. Can you imagine my lot alone, poor, so young, so...

“I was married in a quaint old church outside Granada. My husband was enraptured with me; for a few short weeks I was the happiest of women. I thought the world so beautiful, so...

“Once or twice after that,” continued Lady Pelham, “I noticed a strange man following me; he was not a gentleman; of that I was quite sure, neither did he appear to be paying an...

“When I came to my senses,” continued Lady Pelham, “I was more bewildered than anything else. I could not believe it was true--my husband had been playing some sorry, cruel jest...

“I need not tell you the story of the trial that amused all England. You may have read it. Fine ladies asked eagerly for the morning papers then; they enjoyed the ‘Pelham divorc...

Kenelm Eyrle preferred walking through the woods home; he wanted leisure to think. The sunshine and the songs of the birds disturbed him. He went into the deep heart of the wood...

“Where did Ronald keep his private papers?” asked Kenelm, when he had finished dinner. “Do you think there is anything among them that he would not wish to have inspected?”

“Kenelm,” said Lady Alden, raising her earnest eyes and clasping her hands, “you cannot be cruel; you cannot forget every tie that binds you to Ronald. Oh, why, my God! why did...

He stood in silence, his emotion too great for words. This gentle, gracious, lovely lady a murderess! Ronald innocent after all? She, whom he had looked upon as pure and peerles...

A night had passed, bringing no rest to Kenelm Eyrle. He had gone home to The Towers, but sleep was far from him. His whole soul recoiled with horror from the shock. Never in hi...

Lady Hermione Alden sat in her room alone. Her children had been in with their pretty morning greetings, and had, for the first time, hurried from her, scared by the sight of th...

“Lord Lorriston, it is a sad story. God forbid that I should judge. You know, everybody knows, that I have sworn to bring the murderer to justice. I would not have taken that oa...

“Not to be opened until after my death,” was written on the outer cover of the packet in Sir Ronald’s bold, clear hand, “and then to be read by no one save my wife. Should she d...

But Kenelm made no reply. He was thinking of the two fair women he had seen lying here dead, both slain by the fatal love of one man. Then they read on:

“There came to me, Hermione, a curious instinct of self-preservation the moment that terrible deed was done. The red flame, the mocking devils, the hissing flame all vanished. I...

“There must have been a spell in Aldenmere,” so people said. This was the second fair young wife who had been carried from there to the grave; the second who had met with a trag...