A Young Man's Year

Yes, it was all true! The events of that Red Letter Day had really happened. When Arthur awoke the next morning, he had a queer feeling of its all being a dream, a mirage born o...

She met him just as of old; she gave him the same gay, gracious, almost caressing welcome when she found him at the foot of the stairs, awaiting her arrival and ready to escort...

The end of another fortnight found Arthur still at Hilsey, but on the eve of leaving it for a time at least. Another summons had reached him, one which he could not disregard. H...

Marie Sarradet's decision had been hastened by a train of events and circumstances which might have been devised expressly to precipitate the issue. The chain started with a let...

Oliver Wyse had finished his letters and was smoking a last cigar before turning in. Barber had brought him whiskey and soda water, and wished him good-night, adding that, in ca...

The Majesty of the Law--nay, in theory at least, the Majesty of England--sat enthroned at Raylesbury. In the big chair in the centre the Honourable Sir Christopher Lance, in his...

Arthur went to several more rehearsals, but as they progressed, as the production took shape and final form, they became to his unaccustomed mind painfully exciting, so full of...

IN the end the Syndicate left to Joe Halliday the responsibility of deciding on the future of the unfortunate farce, so far as it had a future on which to decide. On mature refl...

It was a dark, dank, drizzly morning in March. A dull mist filled all the air, and the rain drifted in a thin sheet across the garden of the Middle Temple. Everything looked a d...

The glorious frost lasted a glorious week, generous measure for an English frost, and long enough for Arthur to make considerable improvement in the art of skating; since Margar...

The departure of the Norton Wards and Sir Christopher on Monday morning left Arthur alone with the family party at Hilsey Manor. To live alone with a family is a different thing...

Whenever he was at home at the time of the Assizes Lord Swarleigh made a point of inviting the Judge to dinner. He was Lord-Lieutenant of the County, and he considered the atten...

Arthur escaped from the house as soon as he could, leaving Bernadette and Sir Oliver at tea together. He could not bear to be with them; he had need to be alone with his anger a...

_Le château qui parle et la femme qui écoute_--Bernadette Lisle had begun to be conscious of the truth contained in the proverb, and to recognise where she had made her great mi...

"Mr. Tracy Darton was in it, sir. He advised, and drew the pleadings. But he got silk the same time as we did" (Henry meant, as Mr. Norton Ward did), "and now they've taken you...

"Good-night. Thanks awfully for coming, Mrs. Norton Ward! And you too, Judith! Beg pardon? Oh, yes, I hope so--with just a few alterations. Wants a bit of pulling together, does...

Arthur Lisle sat in his chambers with a copy of the current number of the Law Reports (K.B.D.) before him and with utter discouragement in his heart. This mood was apt to seize...

For the next three months--through the course of the London season, a fine and prosperous one--Arthur Lisle played truant. The poison of speculation was in his veins, the lust o...

It was not given to Arthur again to hear his mother's voice or to see her alive. A few days after the first round of the protracted battle over the great case had ended in his f...

Serious trouble threatened the Sarradet household also--not of the sort which impended over the Lisles, but one not less common. There was increasing strife between father and s...

The gods were laughing at him; so it seemed to Arthur Lisle. They chose to chastise his folly and his sin by ridicule. He whom the catastrophe--the intrigue and the flight--had...

The coming of the Easter legal vacation set Arthur free for the time from professional hopes and fears. He was due on a visit to his mother and sister at Malvern, but excused hi...

Norton Ward on a country visit gave the impression of a locomotive engine in a siding. His repose was so obviously temporary and at the mercy of any signal. He was not moving, b...

"It is interesting--though I suppose it's not romantic." In fact it had possessed for him some of the qualities implied by that hard-worked word. "But my clerk can wire me if an...

On that Friday morning Arthur's seclusion--for thus his stay at Hilsey might be described, so remote it seemed from the rest of his life, so isolated and self-contained--was inv...

After drinking his coffee quickly--with no word to anyone the while--Arthur had gone out of the room. Judith took up her book, Oliver Wyse was glancing at the City article in a...

On a day in July, when this wonderful London season was drawing near an end, and the five hundred pounds had reached about half-way towards exhaustion, Arthur Lisle gave himself...

Marie's remonstrance with her brother was not ill-received--Raymond was too amiable for that--but it was quite unsuccessful. Just emerged from an exhaustive business training on...

Bernadette Lisle's foray on the shops of Paris, undertaken in preparation for the London season, was of so extensive an order as to leave her hardly an hour of the day to hersel...

That same afternoon--the day before Bernadette was to return from Paris--Marie Sarradet telephoned to Arthur asking him to drop in after dinner, if he were free; besides old fri...

Arthur was an affectionate son and enjoyed going home, yet on this occasion he approached his destination with some uneasiness. Mrs. Lisle was a religious woman, Anna was even m...

When Arthur ran down the step and across the pavement, to take the hand which his visitor held out to him over the carriage door, Mr. Sarradet bowed politely, put his hat on, an...

"Well, it was she who went to him really, though Godfrey made some trouble about it. He thought the young man ought to have called first. However they got round him."

A hundred and fifty years ago or thereabouts a certain Jacques Sarradet had migrated from his native Lyons and opened a perfumer's shop in Cheapside. The shop was there still, a...

The next day there occurred to Arthur Lisle--whose mind was a thousand miles away from such things--a most unexpected event. The news of it came by telephone from Henry, who ven...

Arthur Lisle arrived on the pavement in front of Norton Ward's house in Manchester Square five minutes before the time for which he was invited, and fifteen before that at which...