"I Say No"

The small rain fell too softly to be heard in the garden; not a leaf stirred in the airless calm; the watch-dog was asleep, the cats were indoors; far or near, under the murky h...

As an aid to the vigilance of the sentinel, the door had been left ajar. Through the narrow opening, a creaking of the broad wooden stairs of the old house became audible. In an...

She paused, and pushed her thick black hair (already streaked with gray) back from her temples. Her eyes, large and dark and dim, rested on Emily with a sorrowful interest. “Whe...

Francine was awakened the next morning by one of the housemaids, bringing up her breakfast on a tray. Astonished at this concession to laziness, in an institution devoted to the...

So far, her interview with the drawing-master had helped to pass the time. Some girls might have found it no easy task to arrive at a true view of the character of Alban Morris....

Alban Morris--discovered by Emily in concealment among the trees--was not content with retiring to another part of the grounds. He pursued his retreat, careless in what directio...

“It’s the most uninteresting murder that ever was committed. What shall we do with ourselves? I’m tired of being here in the garden. When do the performances in the schoolroom b...

Emily’s impulse was to avoid the drawing-master for the second time. The moment afterward, a kinder feeling prevailed. The farewell interview with Cecilia had left influences wh...

As mistress of a prosperous school, bearing a widely-extended reputation, Miss Ladd prided herself on the liberality of her household arrangements. At breakfast and dinner, not...

“What are we to do next? Oh, Mr. Morris, you must have seen all sorts of people in your time--you know human nature, and I don’t. Help me with a word of advice!”

“I have hope in Mrs. Rook,” Alban answered. “I see I surprise you; but I really mean what I say. Sir Jervis’s housekeeper is an excitable woman, and she is fond of wine. There i...

The metropolis of Great Britain is, in certain respects, like no other metropolis on the face of the earth. In the population that throngs the streets, the extremes of Wealth an...

Emily entered the room. The door was immediately closed on her from the outer side. Mrs. Ellmother’s heavy steps were heard retreating along the passage. Then the banging of the...

“Thank you for reminding me, miss. My name is Elizabeth Mosey. I am well known to the gentleman who attends Miss Letitia. Dr. Allday will speak to my character and also to my ex...

“Many and many a person have I nursed in fever,” she announced. “Many and many a person have I heard say strange things. Never yet, miss, in all my experience--!”

A fortnight after the disappearance of Mrs. Ellmother, and the dismissal of Mrs. Mosey, Doctor Allday entered his consulting-room, punctual to the hour at which he was accustome...

“MURDER. 100 POUNDS REWARD.--Whereas a murder was committed on the thirtieth September, 1877, at the Hand-in-Hand Inn, in the village of Zeeland, Hampshire, the above reward wil...

The doctor found Emily absorbed over her letter. His anxiety to forestall any possible discovery of the deception which had concealed the terrible story of her father’s death, k...

In the meantime, Emily, left by herself, had her own correspondence to occupy her attention. Besides the letter from Cecilia (directed to the care of Sir Jervis Redwood), she ha...

“I am making a little excursion from the Engadine, my dearest of all dear friends. Two charming fellow-travelers take care of me; and we may perhaps get as far as the Lake of Como.

Without a care to trouble her; abroad or at home, finding inexhaustible varieties of amusement; seeing new places, making new acquaintances--what a disheartening contrast did Ce...

“Yes, miss; I said I was to have shown him in, if you had been at home. Perhaps I did wrong; I told him what you told me when you went out this morning--I said you had gone to r...

“I got invited to Sir Jervis’s house,” Alban resumed, “by treating the old savage as unceremoniously as he had treated me. ‘That’s an idle trade of yours,’ he said, looking at m...

She began reading the back numbers of the newspaper at haphazard, without any definite idea of what she was looking for. Conscious of the error into which her own impatience had...

They had not found the slightest trace of any attempt to break into the house in the night. The murdered man’s gold watch and chain were discovered under his pillow. On examinin...

“When I missed you at the Museum, I was afraid you might be ill,” he said. “Ought I to have gone away, when my anxiety was relieved? Shall I go away now?”

If Emily’s eyes could have followed Alban as her thoughts were following him, she would have seen him stop before he reached the end of the road in which the cottage stood. His...

“You’re surprised to see me, of course?” Saluting Emily in those terms, Francine looked round the parlor with an air of satirical curiosity. “Dear me, what a little place to liv...

Since Emily had seen her last, her personal appearance doubly justified the nickname by which her late mistress had distinguished her. The old servant was worn and wasted; her g...

The arrival of Miss Ladd, some time before she had been expected, interrupted the two girls at a critical moment. She had hurried over her business in London, eager to pass the...

When Alban presented himself the next morning, the hours of the night had exercised their tranquilizing influence over Emily. She remembered sorrowfully how Doctor Allday had di...

The house inhabited by Miss Ladd and her pupils had been built, in the early part of the present century, by a wealthy merchant--proud of his money, and eager to distinguish him...

The night was oppressively hot. Finding it impossible to sleep, Francine lay quietly in her bed, thinking. The subject of her reflections was a person who occupied the humble po...

A week later, Alban Morris happened to be in Miss Ladd’s study, with a report to make on the subject of his drawing-class. Mrs. Ellmother interrupted them for a moment. She ente...

“That’s it! She rang for me, to see how I was getting on with my needlework--and she was what I call hearty, for the first time since I have been in her service. I didn’t think...

The only light visible, along the whole length of the building, glimmered through the Venetian blind of the window-entrance to Francine’s sitting-room. Alban proposed to get adm...

The pupils of the drawing-class put away their pencils and color-boxes in high good humor: the teacher’s vigilant eye for faults had failed him for the first time in their exper...

The windows of the long drawing-room at Monksmoor are all thrown open to the conservatory. Distant masses of plants and flowers, mingled in ever-varying forms of beauty, are tou...

The next morning, Mr. Mirabel took two members of the circle at Monksmoor by surprise. One of them was Emily; and one of them was the master of the house.

Out of the music room, and away from his violin, the sound side of Mr. Wyvil’s character was free to assert itself. In his public and in his private capacity, he was an eminentl...

In respect of himself, he was a person beneath notice. In respect of his errand, he was sufficiently important to cast a gloom over the household. The faithless Mirabel had brok...

Miss Darnaway was recalled to the nursery at home. The old squire who did justice to Mr. Wyvil’s port-wine went away next, having guests to entertain at his own house. A far mor...

The keeper’s garden was at the back of the lodge. Passing through the wicket-gate, he found a little summer-house at a turn in the path. Nobody was there: he went in and sat down.

Cecilia and Francine, Mr. Wyvil and Mirabel, were loitering in the conservatory. In the drawing-room, Emily had been considerately left alone with Alban. He had missed the early...

Alban had employed the earlier part of the day in making a sketch in the park--intended as a little present for Emily. Presenting himself in the drawing-room, when his work was...

“Am I not even worth notice?” Francine asked. “Ah, I know to whom I am indebted for your neglect!” She took him familiarly by the arm, and burst into a harsh laugh. “Tell me now...

In the meanwhile Emily had been true to her promise to relieve Mirabel’s anxieties, on the subject of Miss Jethro. Entering the drawing-room in search of Alban, she found him ta...

Having revived his sinking energies in the fruit garden, Mirabel seated himself under the shade of a tree, and reflected on the critical position in which he was placed by Franc...

Mrs. Ellmother--left in charge of Emily’s place of abode, and feeling sensible of her lonely position from time to time--had just thought of trying the cheering influence of a c...

She had waited at the cottage door for a friendly word with Alban, after he had left Emily. The stern despair in his face warned her to let him go in silence. She had looked int...

By a later train Miss Ladd followed him. Emily was too well aware of the importance of the mistress’s presence to the well-being of the school, to permit her to remain at the co...

Shortly after Miss Ladd had taken her departure, a parcel arrived for Emily, bearing the name of a bookseller printed on the label. It was large, and it was heavy. “Reading enou...

Mirabel’s embarrassment was visible the moment he entered the room. For the first time in his life--in the presence of a woman--the popular preacher was shy. He who had taken hu...

Emily recovered her presence of mind. She opened the door, so as to make a draught of air in the room, and called for water. Returning to Mirabel, she loosened his cravat. Mrs....

Reaching the hotel at which he was accustomed to stay when he was in London, Mirabel locked the door of his room. He looked at the houses on the opposite side of the street. His...

During the first days of Mirabel’s sojourn at his hotel in London, events were in progress at Netherwoods, affecting the interests of the man who was the especial object of his...

Alban reached London early enough in the afternoon to find the doctor at his luncheon. “Too late to see Mrs. Ellmother,” he announced. “Sit down and have something to eat.”

Early in the last century one of the picturesque race of robbers and murderers, practicing the vices of humanity on the borderlands watered by the river Tweed, built a tower of...

Early in the morning Mirabel set forth for Redwood Hall, in one of the vehicles which Mrs. Delvin still kept at “The Clink” for the convenience of visitors. He returned soon aft...

Emily found Mirabel in the waiting room at Belford. Her sudden appearance might well have amazed him; but his face expressed a more serious emotion than surprise--he looked at h...

A decent elderly woman was seated at the bedside. She rose, and spoke to Emily with a mingling of sorrow and confusion strikingly expressed on her face. “It isn’t my fault,” she...

In a moment more, the doctor came in--a brisk, smiling, self-sufficient man--smartly dressed, with a flower in his button-hole. A stifling odor of musk filled the room, as he dr...

The discovery of the letter gave a new direction to Emily’s thoughts--and so, for the time at least, relieved her mind from the burden that weighed on it. To what question, on h...

For some little time, they traveled in silence--alone in the railway carriage. After submitting as long as she could to lay an embargo on the use of her tongue, Mrs. Ellmother s...

Reaching the cottage at night, Emily found the card of a visitor who had called during the day. It bore the name of “Miss Wyvil,” and had a message written on it which strongly...

“The information which I have obtained from Miss Jethro has been communicated to me, on the condition that I shall not disclose the place of her residence. ‘Let me pass out of n...

Cecilia still held her tenderly embraced. By slow degrees, her head dropped until it rested on her friend’s bosom. Silently she suffered. Silently Cecilia bent forward, and kiss...