Elster's Folly: A Novel

The ascending sun threw its slanting rays abroad on a glorious August morning, and the little world below began to awaken into life--the life of another day of sanguine pleasure...

Had Percival Elster lingered ever so short a time near the clerk's house that morning he would have met that functionary himself; for in less than a minute after he had passed o...

Jabez Gum came out of his house in the bright summer morning, missing Mr. Elster by one minute only. He went round to a small shed at the back of the house and brought forth sun...

The guests had arrived, and Hartledon was alive with bustle and lights. The first link in the chain, whose fetters were to bind more than one victim, had been forged. Link upon...

The rain poured down on the Monday morning; and Lord Hartledon stood at the window of the countess-dowager's sitting-room--one she had unceremoniously adopted for her own privat...

The famous boat-race was postponed. Some of the competitors had discovered they should be the better for a few days' training, and the contest was fixed for the following Monday.

It was a somewhat singular coincidence, noted after the terrible event, now looming in the distance, had taken place, and when people began to weigh the various circumstances su...

Tuesday morning rose, bright and propitious: a contrast to the two previous days arranged for the boat-race. All was pleasure, bustle, excitement at Hartledon: but the coolness...

Dinner at Hartledon had been ordered for seven o'clock. It was beyond that hour when Dr. Ashton arrived, for he had been detained--a clergyman's time is not always under his own...

But the curiosity of women--who can suppress it? They were as though they heard not, and were pressing on to the door, when Val Elster dashed in with a white face.

Percival Elster was in truth Earl of Hartledon. By one of those unexpected calamities, which are often inexplicable--and which most certainly was so as yet in the present instan...

On this day, Thursday, the inquest was held. Most of the gay crowd staying at Hartledon had taken flight; Mr. Carteret, and one or two more, whose testimony might be wished for,...

It happened that Clerk Gum had business on hand the day of the inquest, which obliged him to go to Garchester. He reached home after dark; and the first thing he saw was his wif...

The dews of an October evening were falling upon Calne, as Lord Hartledon walked from the railway-station. Just as unexpectedly as he had arrived the morning you first saw him,...

With a shriek the countess-dowager darted to the far end of the room, turning up her gown as she went, and muffling it over her head and face, so that only the little eyes, roun...

It was a mild day in spring. The air was balmy, but the skies were grey and lowering; and as a gentleman strolled across a field adjoining Hartledon Park he looked up at them mo...

Not in the Rectory drawing-room, but in a pretty little sitting-room attached to her bed-chamber, where the temperature was regulated, and no draughts could penetrate, reclined...

That circumstances, combined with the countess-dowager, worked terribly against Lord Hartledon, events proved. Had the Ashtons remained at the Rectory all might have been well;...

Lord Hartledon was leading his bride through the chapel at the conclusion of the ceremony, when his attention was caught by something outside one of the windows. At first he tho...

Some few weeks went by. On a fine June morning Lord and Lady Hartledon were breakfasting at their hotel in the Rue Rivoli. She was listlessly playing with her cup; he was glanci...

On a burning day at the end of June, Lord Hartledon was walking towards the Temple. He had not yet sought out his friend Thomas Carr; a sense of shame held him back; but he was...

From that hour Lord Hartledon was a changed man. He went about as one who has some awful fear upon him, starting at shadows. That his manner was inexplicable, even allowing that...

Perhaps Lady Hartledon had never in all her life been so much astonished as when she reached Hartledon, for the first person she saw there was her mother: her mother, whom she h...

Thomas Carr was threading his way through the mazy precincts of Gray's Inn, with that quick step and absorbed manner known only, I think, to the busy man of our busy metropolis....

They were shut in together: the detective officer, Mr. Carr, and Lord Hartledon. "You may speak freely before this gentleman," observed Mr. Carr, as if in apology for a third be...

"I wonder what you _think_ of yourself, Galloping about _Rotten Row_ with women when your wife's _dying_. Of _course_ it's not your fault that reports of your goings-on _reach_...

It was the same noble-looking man Calne had ever known, as he went down the road, throwing a greeting to one and another. Lord Hartledon was not a whit less attractive than Val...

The Dowager-Countess of Kirton stood in the sunny breakfast-room at Hartledon, surveying the well-spread table with complacency; for it appeared to be rather more elaborately se...

The months rolled on, and Lord and Lady Hartledon did not separate. They remained together, and were, so far, happy enough--the moonlight happiness hinted at; and it is as I bel...

Not until the Sunday morning did Lady Hartledon speak to her husband of the stranger's visit. There seemed to have been no previous opportunity. Mr. Carr had arrived late on the...

Again the months went on, it may almost be said the years, and little took place worthy of record. Time obliterates as well as soothes; and Lady Hartledon had almost forgotten t...

Summer dust was in the London streets, summer weather in the air, and the carriage of that fashionable practitioner, Sir Alexander Pepps, still waited before Lord Hartledon's ho...

As the days and weeks went on, and Lord and Lady Hartledon continued at Calne, there was one circumstance that began to impress itself on the mind of the former in a careless so...

Some eighteen months after the event recorded in the last chapter, a travelling carriage dashed up to a house in Park Lane one wet evening in spring. It contained Lord Hartledon...

The time went on. It may have been some twelve or thirteen months later that Mr. Carr, sitting alone in his chambers, one evening, was surprised by the entrance of his clerk--wh...

Closing the door upon them, the surgeon went off on other business, and Lord Hartledon entered and bent over the bed; a more comfortable bed than it once had been. It was the Wi...

Again the years went on, bringing not altogether comfort to the house of Hartledon. As Anne's children were born--there were three now--a sort of jealous rivalry seemed to arise...

Lord and Lady Hartledon were entertaining a family group. The everlasting dowager kept to them unpleasantly; making things unbearable, and wearing out her welcome in no slight d...

A change for the worse occurred in the child, Lord Elster; and after two or three weeks' sinking he died, and was buried at Hartledon by the side of his mother. Hartledon's sist...