Eleanor's victory

The craggy cliffs upon the Norman coast looked something like the terraced walls and turreted roofs of a ruined city in the hot afternoon sunshine, as the _Empress_ steamer sped...

Mr. Vane took his daughter away from the station in one of those secondary and cheaper vehicles which are distinguished by the discriminating Parisian by some mysterious differe...

The history of George Mowbray Vandeleur Vane was the history of many men whose lot it was to shine in that brilliant orbit of which George, Prince Regent, was the ruling star. A...

It was nearly noon when Eleanor Vane awoke upon the morning after her journey; for this young lady was a good sleeper, and was taking her revenge for four-and-twenty hours of wa...

Miss Vane walked very slowly homeward through the hot, breathless summer night. She was too sorrowful, too much depressed by the sudden disappointment which had fallen like a da...

Richard Thornton was by no means an early riser. He was generally one of the last of those gentlemen who shuffled into the orchestra at the ten o’clock rehearsal of a new melodr...

Had not Eleanor’s mind been entirely absorbed by one cruel anxiety, she would have wondered at her old friend’s strange greeting. As it was she took no heed of his manner. The s...

George Vane did not come home. Eleanor kept the promise made to her faithful friend, and tried to sleep. She flung herself, dressed as she was, upon the little bed near the curt...

The story which Richard Thornton had told Eleanor Vane was the simple record of an unhappy truth. The gay and thoughtless spendthrift, the man about town, who had outlived his a...

Signora Picirillo was very well contented with her morning’s work. She had obtained Eleanor’s consent to a speedy departure from Paris; that was the grand point. Once away from...

Eleanor Vane looked very sadly at all the common everyday sights connected with the domestic economy of the Pilasters, when she went back to Bloomsbury after her interview with...

Eleanor Vane was not to go down to Berkshire alone. The beginning of her new life, that terrible beginning which she so much dreaded, was to make her acquainted with new people.

A phaeton and pair was in waiting for Mr. Monckton outside the Slough station. The vehicle was very plain, but had a certain quiet elegance of its own, and the horses had been s...

The course of Eleanor’s life at Hazlewood was peaceful and monotonous. She had been engaged simply as a “companion” for Laura Mason. That common epithet, which is so often twist...

Mrs. Darrell stood for some time clasped in her son’s embrace, and sobbing violently. The two girls withdrew a few paces, too bewildered to know what to do, in the first shock o...

Mr. Monckton came to Hazlewood upon the day after Launcelot Darrell’s arrival. The grave solicitor had known the young man before his departure for India, but there seemed no ve...

Tolldale Priory was a red brick mansion, lying deep in a valley, almost hidden amidst the thick woodland that surrounded it; a stately dwelling-place, shrouded and well-nigh ent...

Mrs. Darrell drove her son and the two girls to Tolldale Priory in accordance with Mr. Monckton’s wish. The widow had no particular desire to bring either Laura or Eleanor into...

Mrs. Darrell drove away from Tolldale Priory late in the afternoon, and in a very despondent state of mind. She had done no good by her visit to Woodlands, and it seemed painful...

“She was with us until a few minutes ago,” Launcelot answered, carelessly; “but she was called away to see a milliner or a dressmaker, or some such important personage in the fe...

The little pony-carriage drove on to the station; and Eleanor, like some traveller in a dream, saw the castle walls and turrets, the busy street and hurrying people, spin past h...

Eleanor Vane employed the morning after her arrival at the Pilasters in writing to Laura Mason. She would have written a long letter if she could, for she knew what grief her su...

Launcelot Darrell had not sailed for Calcutta in the _Princess Alice_. This point once established, it was utterly vain for Richard Thornton to argue against that indomitable be...

Eleanor Vane lay awake through the greater part of the night which succeeded her interview with the shipbroker. She lay awake, trying to fashion for herself some scheme by which...

When a man sets his happiness in the balance, he is apt to be contented with a very slight turning of the scale. He is not likely to be critical as to the wording of the verdict...

On a bright September morning a hired carriage took Miss Vane and her friends to the quiet old church in Hart Street, Bloomsbury. There was a little crowd assembled about the do...

The new life which began for Eleanor Monckton at Tolldale Priory seemed very strange to her. The prim respectability of the old mansion weighed heavily upon her spirits. The bes...

Laura Mason came to live at Tolldale. Gilbert Monckton argued with himself that his most reasonable motive for marrying Eleanor Vane had lain in his desire to provide a secure h...

Two pair of jealous eyes kept constant watch upon Eleanor Monckton for some time after that October afternoon on which the lawyer and Miss Mason stood side by side, looking at t...

Although Eleanor Monckton’s utmost watchfulness revealed to her nothing that could be twisted into a proof of Launcelot Darrell’s identity with the man who had been the indirect...

Richard Thornton was not slow to respond to Eleanor’s summons. The same post which carried Mrs. Monckton’s letter to the young man conveyed another letter, addressed to the Sign...

It is only natural that one painter should take an interest in the work of another. Mr. Darrell testified no surprise, therefore, when Richard Thornton appeared at Hazlewood the...

“I told you that Launcelot Darrell would make a confidant of his pencil,” he said, in a low voice. “We may as well tie up the portfolio, Mrs. Monckton; there will be nothing mor...

An almost ungovernable impulse prompted Eleanor Monckton to make her way at once into Maurice de Crespigny’s sick-chamber, and say to him, “Launcelot Darrell is the wretch who c...

“Yes,” repeated Richard Thornton, “I have reason to believe that the will witnessed by your husband is a very unpleasant piece of literature in the estimation of Launcelot Darre...

Lancelot Darrell came to Tolldale Priory upon the day after Richard’s visit to Windsor, and it was easy for Eleanor, assisted by her knowledge of what had transpired, to see the...

Eleanor Monckton sat looking at the door which had closed upon the scene in the lamplit hall, almost as if the intensity of her gaze could have pierced the solid oaken panel and...

For some few days after the Frenchman’s arrival, Launcelot Darrell stopped away from the Priory, much to the regret of his betrothed, whose delight in her _trousseau_ was not su...

Mr. Darrell, and his friend the commercial traveller, did not linger long at the garden gate. There was nothing very cordial or conciliatory in Gilbert Monckton’s manner, and he...

Eleanor Monckton walked slowly back to the house by the side of her husband, whose eyes never left his wife’s face during that short walk between the garden-gate and the long Fr...

There were no stars in the blank grey sky above that lonely place; black masses of pine and fir shut in the narrow path upon either side; mysterious noises, caused by the capric...

The rooms that had been occupied by Maurice de Crespigny were at the back of the house, and Eleanor, returning by the way that she had come, had occasion to pass once more throu...

Eleanor Monckton’s first impulse was to rush into the room and denounce Launcelot Darrell in the presence of those who would be sure to come in answer to her call. He would be s...

“You asked me why I came here to-night,” she said, looking at her husband. “I will tell you, Gilbert: but I must tell you a long story first, almost all the story of my life.”

The will was gone. Eleanor tried to think how or where she could have lost it. It might have dropped from her pocket, perhaps. That was the only solution of the mystery that pre...

“I would have got a conveyance for you if it had been possible, Eleanor,” he said; “but of course at this time of night that is utterly out of the question. Do you think that yo...

Laura Mason was not dangerously ill. Her malady was by no means of a serious nature. The pink-blossom tint of her cheeks was intensified into vivid carnation; the turquoise-blue...

Gilbert Monckton went up to Woodlands immediately after the funeral, in order to be present at the reading of the will. He felt that he had a right to see the end of this busine...

The letter written by the old man to his three nieces was read aloud by Miss Sarah in the presence of the eager assembly. Amongst all those anxious listeners there was no one wh...

It was late in the afternoon when Eleanor awoke, aroused by the clanging of the dinner-bell in the cupola above her head. She had been worn out by her patient attendance upon La...

“You do not surely imagine, Miss Villars,” she said, “that anybody will engage you in the responsible position of governess to their children upon no better recommendation than...

“Goodness me, my dear!” exclaimed the lady, “how astonished you look! I hope I’m not a GUY. Frederick—that’s Major Lennard, you know—never liked this bonnet, and really I’m begi...

Mrs. Major Lennard was very kind to Eleanor, and if kindness and friendliness on the part of her employers could have made Mrs. Monckton comfortable, she might have been entirel...

Eleanor had considerable difficulty in parrying Mrs. Lennard’s questions as to how she had come to know Gilbert Monckton and his ward; and she was obliged to confess that she ha...

Major and Mrs. Lennard and Eleanor Monckton had stayed for nearly two months at the Hôtel du Palais. April was fast melting into May, and the atmosphere in the city of Boulevard...

No letter came from Richard Thornton. Eleanor was seized with a kind of panic as the days went by, and there was no answer from the young man, the faithful friend, without whose...

Richard Thornton had received Eleanor’s letter in Edinburgh, and had been travelling perpetually since his receipt of the girl’s eager epistle. He had calculated that by travell...

Launcelot Darrell and his mother had inhabited Woodlands for a little more than a fortnight. The painters, and paper-hangers, and upholsterers had done a great deal to alter the...

Gilbert Monckton seconded his wife in all she wished to do. There was no scandal. All legal formalities were gone through very quietly. Those troublesome people who require to b...