False Evidence

Fortune is the strangest mistress a man ever wooed. Who courts her she shuns, who deserves her she passes over, and on him who defies her and takes no pains to secure her she la...

About a mile seaward from Porlock, separated from it by a narrow strip of the most luxuriant meadowland in Devonshire, lies the village of Bossington. Perhaps it were better cal...

That was quite an eventful night in our quiet life. Whilst we three stood looking at one another half fearfully--I full of this strange, new idea which had just occurred to me--...

On the morrow my father, not a little to my surprise, appeared to be in a particularly cheerful tome of mind. At breakfast time he remarked that the day looked well for fishing,...

A very demon of unrest laid hold of me that night. I ought to have been sleepy, for we had had a long fatiguing day in the open air, but, as a matter of fact, I was nothing of t...

Imagine a long, bare-looking apartment with white-washed walls and generally cheerless appearance, in one corner of which had been pushed aside black boards, piles of maps, and...

I had been leaning against a tree on the lawn, afraid to enter the house, yet knowing that there was nothing else for me to do. At the sound of a voice close to my elbow I turne...

How we reached home that night I could never exactly tell. I know that I half carried, half supported him down the narrow path, and at last managed to reach the door of our hous...

During the next four years of my life there happened to me not one single incident worth recording. Our home had been broken up, and we had left Devonshire for ever. My father a...

My first plans were not easy to form. I was like a blind man groping for some object which has slipped from his fingers, and not knowing in which direction to search for it firs...

As yet I have said nothing of my sister Marian. It is necessary for me now to do so. They say that a man can never describe or appreciate his own sister, and, on the whole, I am...

At six o'clock on the following morning I was up and in the park. I had prepared myself for much, but what I saw exceeded everything. It is not part of my _rôle_ as story-teller...

For a second everything swam before my eyes, and it always seemed to me afterwards a miracle that I recovered myself sufficiently to accept his outstretched hand, and mutter som...

Before a month had passed I began to feel quite settled at the cottage. My duties, though many, lay within my capacity, and were such as I found pleasure in undertaking. It was...

In less than an hour I was back at Devereux Court. The gong was booming through the hall as I reached the drawing-room, and the little party had already risen to their feet. Mau...

For three days and nights I lay at Devereux Court in danger of my life, but at the end of that time the concussion of the brain from which I was suffering suddenly abated, and I...

"I have been married twice, and by each wife I had a son. Herbert was the name of the elder, Rupert of the younger. Herbert's mother was the daughter of an English nobleman, and...

Before a month had passed I was able to get about, and was soon as well and strong as ever. I gave my evidence before a full bench of the county magistrates, identified the man...

The sun had gone down behind a bank of angry, leaden-coloured clouds, which were fast spreading over the whole surface of the sky. Only here and there a stunted, half-grown, and...

It was eighteen miles from John Hilton's hut to the park gates, across a wild country, and I had had two hours' hard riding when, splashed with bog mud from head to foot, I walk...

It wanted but three days to Christmas, and it had been a frost. Upon the bare fields and the shivering landscape had fallen a hand of iron--no gentle hoar-frost, making the fiel...

If any one had told me that evening, as Marian and Holdern and I drew near to the great entrance of Devereux Court, that I was entering it for the last time for many years, I sh...

I sat between Lady Olive and her younger sister at dinner, and I have no doubt that both found me very stupid and inattentive. I could neither eat nor drink, talk nor laugh. Eve...

It is strange that, although so many years have passed, that scene remains as though written with letters of fire into my memory--vivid and clear. Word for word, I can remember...

Like a man in a dream, I walked with unsteady footsteps down the avenue, through the shrubbery, and across the park to the cottage. I had forgotten my latch-key, and the servant...

Like the shock from a galvanic battery did that sound breathe life into my frozen limbs. Holding a chair before my face I literally burst through the high French windows, crashi...

"DEAR SIR FRANCIS DEVEREUX,--You will, I am sure, agree with me that the revelation of last evening renders it imperative on my part to leave Devereux at once, or as soon as pos...

Of all the contingencies which had occurred to me, this was one which I had not considered, for only once since I had been its occupant had Sir Francis called at the cottage. Bu...

Mr. Holdern dined with us that evening, and when he and I had the table to ourselves, and little clouds of blue smoke began to curl upwards to the ceiling, he made a sudden requ...

Early on the following morning I mounted for the last time into the high dog-cart, which had been kept in the coach-house at the "cottage" for my use, and was driven rapidly awa...

"Why, don't you know? It's Major Rupert Devereux, the man who wrote that awfully clever article in the _Fortnightly_ last month. He's an M.P., and a great man on committees. Sor...

We stood on the slope of a wild heath-covered hill, alone, with no human being or sign of habitation in sight. Before us towered a dreary, lofty range of bare mountains--on one...

It was a strange, wild, magnificent spot. A deep gorge running inland from the sea, only avoided cutting into the precipice which we were carefully avoiding, by a strip of turf...

For a whole week I shared my father's abode in company with this band of robbers, and then, finding me indomitable in my determination to remain with him, he made another propos...

It was one of those evenings which, to any one acquainted only with our English climate, seem like a foretaste of paradise. I sat before a tiny marble table at one of the open-a...

My father and I were sitting at breakfast on the following morning, out of doors, on the wooden balcony, when I again recurred to the visit which we were to receive.

Soon after four o'clock Lord Parkhurst suddenly woke up, and remembered that the convent of San Martino was still unvisited. We were recalled from the garden, and after a hasty...

It must have been a little before six o'clock on the following morning, when I was suddenly aroused from sleep, and, opening my eyes, saw my father, half-dressed, bending over m...

It was a strange meeting. Full of a great throbbing hope, I glanced from one to another of their faces. My father's was white and set and stern. My Uncle Rupert's was ghastly pa...

The whole of the following morning my father spent with Mr. Leigh, who arrived in answer to his invitation soon after nine o'clock. When I returned to lunch he was still there,...

What led me there I cannot imagine, save it was a wild desire to escape for a brief while from the thoughts that were tormenting me, but an hour or two later I was on the Marina...

I turned away from the window of my room, whence I had been gazing idly into the dreary barrack square below, and advanced to greet the stately, grey-headed old man who stood in...

In three days we were to leave England. In three days I should be started upon the journey which would lead me into the land where, above all others, I desired to be. And where...

Whether it was the stifling desert air, or the anticipation of the morrow's battle, I cannot tell; but sleep for me was a thing impossible. We were encamped on the outskirts of...

I had kept my vow, for though I was again within the park of Devereux, and in sight of the grand old mansion, my father was by my side. A splendid constitution had saved him fro...