Behind the Throne

On the following night, as eleven o'clock slowly chimed from the pointed steeple of Orton church, George Macbean was walking along the narrow path that led from the highroad to...

At last there was a light footstep out in the hall. The door opened, and she entered, radiant in her wonderful bridal gown and orange-blossoms, her long sweeping train behind, b...

The man whose brilliant career had ended, longed to open the safe and to see whether certain papers it contained had really been disturbed. But even if he possessed the key whic...

Her Excellency Signora Morini was an Englishwoman, and for that reason the Minister rented Orton Court, that picturesque old Queen Anne house in Leicestershire, where, with thei...

Camillo Morini stood at the big window of his private cabinet in the Ministry of War at Rome, gazing down upon the silent courtyard, white in the glaring heat of afternoon.

The winter season in Florence had commenced in real earnest, and the streets of the grey old city were agog with the crowd of wealthy foreigners who migrate there for blue sky a...

She had contemplated engaging a Frenchwoman or a Swiss to teach little Bertha, but most fortunately, General Borselli, whom she had met during a season spent with her husband in...

In the zone of light shed by the green-shaded reading-lamp the rector, a stout, good-humoured, round-faced man of forty, sat writing a letter, while his nephew, lounging back in...

The man who had laid such an elaborate plot against His Excellency stood hesitating and confounded. He had never dreamed that Dubard, upon whom he had relied so implicitly, woul...

"Then let us find a quiet corner where we can be alone, and I will explain," said Borselli, rising and offering the girl his arm. Both were well acquainted with all the ramifica...

Dinner at the Villa San Donato was always a stately meal, served in that huge, lofty _sala di pranzo_, or dining-room, with its marble floor, its high prison-like windows closel...

The Angelus of a sudden clashed forth from the high castellated tower of the village church away over the Arno, winding deep in its beautiful fertile valley, that veritable para...

Mr Morgan-Mason, the Member for South-West Norfolk, sat alone in his gorgeous gilt and white dining-room with the remains of dessert spread before him. A coarse-faced, elderly m...

"Yes. You speak English quite well, therefore I have obtained for you a situation as governess in a highly respectable and wealthy family," he said. "You remember you asked me a...

Five years ago he had bought that enormous old place in the Via Nazionale--a place full of historic interest--together with its old furniture, its gallery of cinquecento paintin...

Next day at noon Mary, who was out driving in the smart English victoria, called at the Ministry and again sat alone with her father trying to persuade him to order an inquiry i...

Mary, accompanied by the faithful Teresa, a stout, middle-aged woman in black, who had seen fifteen years of service in the family, went out along the Corso, at that hour crowde...

From where she bent her eye at the big old-fashioned keyhole, she saw that the ponderous steel door had been opened by a key, for it was still in the shining lock. Within that s...

At that moment, however, the door suddenly opened, causing the three men to turn and glance, when, to their surprise, they saw, standing before them, the man whose name had just...

"But tell me," cried Mary, utterly amazed at the unhappy man's startling allegations, "do you actually declare that Dubard and Mr Macbean have conspired in order to throw the op...

The easy-going, well-dressed political adventurer before him was, he knew, in the secrets of the strong party who were his opponents and who were ever plotting his downfall. He...

He seldom took the train to Florence because, on account of his position, the obsequious officials treated him with so much ceremony. He was a modest man, who at heart hated all...

"I suppose so, Billy, much as I regret it. But a fellow has to take advantage of the main chance in his life, you know, and this is mine?" declared George Macbean, leaning back...

George and Mary met frequently in the days that followed. His Excellency was still suffering from an attack of that prostrating malady Roman fever, and George, as his private se...

For Mary Morini the world was full of base intrigue and uncharitableness, of untruth and false friendship. Four years ago she had returned to Italy from that quiet school at Bro...

An hour had passed, and Mary, against her inclination, had danced with various partners, and had heard around her comments regarding her personal beauty and her dress such as al...

When he descended to breakfast next morning he announced to his uncle his intention of cycling into Rugby, well knowing that the rector had to give a lesson in religious instruc...

General Arturo Valentini, commanding the Italian forces on the Alpine frontier of France, sprang nimbly from an open cab, and helped out his companion--a young lady in deep mour...

Camillo Morini, after a heavy day's work in the silence of the big old library at San Donato shaded from the sun-glare, rose, and joining Mary, went out along the hill to enjoy...

After luncheon Camillo Morini left his wife, Mary, and the three young English girls, Anna and Eva Fry and Violet Walters, and retired as usual to his study. He had been silent...

The little rural fete, encouraged by the richer residents, was, like other village flower-shows, the annual occasion for the cottagers to exhibit their "twelve best varieties of...

The Minister of War shook his head dubiously. What his daughter had told him about Jules Dubard was utterly inconceivable. He could not believe her. Truth to tell, he half belie...

A fat waiter conducted a well-dressed, lady-like girl up the great marble staircase of the Hotel Brun, in Bologna, rapped lightly at the door of a private sitting-room, and ushe...

The great gilded ballroom of the French Embassy in Rome was thronged by a brilliant crowd, even though it was out of the season and the majority of the official and diplomatic w...

Mary, in a pretty _decollete_ dinner-gown of pale pink chiffon, with a single tea-rose in her corsage, had, at Dubard's suggestion, gone to the piano, and in a sweet contralto h...

As Big Ben boomed forth twelve o'clock over London that same night the supper-room at the Savoy was filled to overflowing with a boisterous, well-dressed crowd of after-theatre...

"You will recollect, Miss Mary, that when I congratulated you at Orton upon your engagement to Dubard, you declared that you had no thought of any such thing," exclaimed George...

On that same hot afternoon, while His Excellency was pacing the library in the high-up old villa in the Apennines, Dubard alighted from a cab in the Via Salaria, in Rome, and en...

"If you accept their conditions as they stand, they pay one hundred thousand francs--four thousand pounds sterling--into your account at the Pall Mall branch of the Credit Lyonn...

Outside, the typical old-fashioned English garden, bright in the June sunlight, was a wealth of flowers, while the old house itself was embowered in honeysuckle and roses. Beyon...

Within a month of the abandoned wedding at Orton, Mary Morini and George Macbean were married quietly at St James's Church, in Piccadilly, the Rev Basil Sinclair assisting, and...

"You!" gasped Borselli quickly, staring at the speaker. "Ah yes! I was a fool to have trusted you after all. I recognised it when too late. You have turned in Morini's favour."