A vagrant wife

The country town of Beckham was astir. It was a cloudy, changeful May afternoon, and the white-capped country lasses who were alighting from all sorts of strange vehicles at the...

Meanwhile the Braithwaite carriage had reached the Grange, and, Miss Lane’s timid remonstrances having been overcome, it had been arranged that she was to stay to dine there, an...

Meanwhile Stephen Lawler had returned to the Grange, happy in the favor pretty Miss Lane had accorded him at the expense of Harry, whom he hated with a hatred which, if unreason...

It was now the end of May, and Miss Lane was to leave Garstone Vicarage in the last days of June. She went through the dull round of her daily duties as carefully as ever; but t...

That night there was consternation at the Grange--Harry had not returned. His horse, which he had left in charge of a man he knew at the station, was brought back late in the da...

When Harry uttered the words “My wife!” his brother looked from one to the other for a few moments without a word; then, in a low, sullen voice, he said:

The announcement that Colonel Richardson was married entirely changed the aspect in which his attention to Lilian had appeared. Annie understood now that she herself had been us...

Annie did not find life at the Elms such a miserable affair as she had expected. That first evening the key-note was struck of the conduct of each member of the family toward he...

The next day Colonel Richardson went to Scotland, after taking a very warm farewell of Annie, who, so far as she herself was concerned, was extremely sorry for his departure. He...

Careless of herself and her own secret, in the burning desire to be revenged upon Annie, Lilian sped back to the house, not knowing that George had seen her, and found Harry wit...

The first thing Annie had done on arriving at her London lodging had been to take off her wedding-ring and hide it away in a corner of her desk. She had given to the landlady th...

Gerald Gibson had not gone many yards further down the street, after seeing the meeting between Miss Langton and Colonel Richardson, when he was overtaken by a fellow-actor, Aub...

Before the company Annie had joined started on a tour, she had heard more tidings to distress her about the Braithwaite family. It was Aubrey Cooke who brought them this time. H...

Annie felt half inclined at first to request the manager, on the plea of illness, to let his niece, who was her “understudy,” play her parts for the week the company were to spe...

The news of her husband’s illness had fallen like a knell on Annie’s ears; for in a moment she saw that the bright vision of pleasure and satisfied ambition which Aubrey’s words...

Annie soon found herself in a difficult position between the brother-in-law she liked and the husband she disliked. William was always wanting her to be out of doors with him, H...

“Why, when you left him, you were a little timid lily, whose charm was quite lost upon a great senseless brute like that,” said George, with sentiment; “now you have come back a...

Annie left her husband’s room that night, after his most unexpected declaration of love and her own promise to try to return it, in a state of bewilderment in which thought was...

He was shivering violently. She rang the bell for assistance; but it was too late to avert the consequences of that night’s work, and before morning the fever was back upon him....

The journey back to London was a very strange one to Annie; she never saw the landscape through which the train passed, she did not even remember the faces of her fellow-passeng...

Annie stood with her husband at the top of the stairs until she heard the street door shut upon Aubrey Cooke; then, recovering her self-command, she turned and said, “Won’t you...

Annie felt a curious and altogether new sensation as she submitted to be carried off to the hotel by her husband, whom success in this small enterprise had restored to the happi...

Annie woke the next morning with a dull, uncomfortable sense of having received a great blow which quite counterbalanced the ecstasy of her first stage-success. She reasoned wit...

The nightly duty Annie had to perform at the theater was all that saved her from a serious illness, as the result of the acute misery she suffered for some time after the eventf...

“Don’t go to the theater to-night, Annie! Send a note to say you are not well,” suggested George, when they reached the house where his sister-in-law was living. “You are not fi...

Annie did not sleep that night. Thoughts of poor Aubrey and the wreck the clever young man had made of his life, and remorse at her own share in bringing it about, occupied part...

Annie heard her husband open the door, but she did not turn round; then she heard his footsteps advance to the middle of the room and stop. She still stood leaning against the o...

Annie passed the night at Kirby Park; and, when she and Harry were sitting at breakfast the next morning, he told her he should come and see her act that night.

More than six years have passed since the night when Annie returned with her husband to Kirby Park, and there are Braithwaites once more at Garstone Grange. For Harry, with a wi...