Israel Rank

It was the close of a bleak, autumnal afternoon. All day long in the chill and windy atmosphere the dust had been driven helter-skelter along the shabbier streets of Clapham, wh...

When I was about seven years of age my father died. I think the cause was aerated waters, although I remember that on being shown his body after death it looked so small that my...

I was now sixteen and a half, and my mother had kept me at school much longer than her means had warranted. I think that at one time she had some idea that I might gain a schola...

The next morning I had a stormy interview with my landlord. He would wait no longer for the arrears of rent. He gave me three days to pay or to find other rooms. In the meantime...

One day it struck me that I had never seen Hammerton, the magnificent Hampshire home of the Gascoynes. It was the most important of the half-dozen places that went with the titl...

With the help of Grahame Hallward and a strict economy of the money which Godfrey Twyneham had sent me I managed to get through the summer fairly comfortably. I visited the West...

After such a brilliant success I felt that I required rest. It would not do to set to work again until my nerves were thoroughly restored, and the period of excitement I had pas...

The Sunday after Grahame had brought me the news of Sibella’s engagement I visited the Hallwards. I managed to get through a conventional speech of congratulation, stung to self...

I missed no opportunity of finding out every detail of young Henry Gascoyne’s college career. From all accounts he must have been surprisingly lazy, for no one ever spoke of him...

“Ah! Then everything else falls into line. I should like to see them, but I can hardly make the advances. You see, my poor brother chose to quarrel with me for two reasons; firs...

I had reached quite a new phase of my career. The boy who had set out in life from the little house at Clapham with a distinctly suburban appearance was now hardly recognisable....

Although I had from motives of policy given up the idea of making Sibella my wife, I was none the less somewhat overcome at receiving an invitation to her wedding. Grahame Hallw...

I said I should be delighted. Mr. Gascoyne and his wife had stayed at the Grange till the summer was almost over, and I knew that Miss Gascoyne was going to shut the house up fo...

If I was to have access to Sibella at all, it was necessary to make friends with her husband, and the only way to make friends with him was to be useful to him. I knew quite wel...

I was glad to discover that Ughtred Gascoyne had left all his little fortune, excepting such as did not return to the Gascoyne coffers, to Catherine Goodsall, and that she would...

Miss Gascoyne refused Mr. Hibbert-Wyllie. I was first made aware of this fact by the announcement in the _Morning Post_ that he had left London, and proposed to go for a six wee...

There had been three Henry Gascoynes. The youngest was gone. There remained two, and one of them, nearly ninety, was scarcely worth considering. He was hardly likely to marry, a...

I looked forward to this task with little relish. I had never seen her in a really bad temper, but I was certain that she could be violent. That was not all. She might break off...

Miss Gascoyne and I were to be married the following spring. Why people who want to get married and are in a position to get married don’t do so at once I cannot understand. I f...

The rest of the winter I was able to devote myself to Sibella, who grew more beautiful in my eyes every day. She was bewitchingly decadent, and her decadence was independent of...

Lionel Holland was, of course, mistaken in accepting as genuine my indifference as to whether the Gascoynes were civil to me or no. Since they had asked me to their house it was...

The time passed slowly, but in a fortnight I found myself again at Hammerton sleeping beneath the same roof as Esther Lane. I met her again on the terrace on Sunday morning, as...

I had still made no plans as regards Lord Gascoyne and his heir. I must confess that I had qualms about the child, which shows how illogical and unreasoning sentiment is. It is...

Although Sibella had more or less accustomed herself to the idea of my marriage, the nearness of its approach gave her somewhat of a shock. Woman-like, she wanted to meet Miss G...

I had so far proceeded with extraordinary deliberation. I had from the first realised the danger of hurry. For a time I forgot caution, and that is why I, Israel Rank Gascoyne,...

I cannot quite decide whether it was the preparations and natural excitement consequent on my marriage, or whether much success had made me careless, but certain it was that I c...

It was not deemed probable that it would be necessary to summon Lady Gascoyne as witness. The evidence of the others who had been in the room at the time when Lord Gascoyne was...

I suppose I must be thoroughly selfish, for at this moment of extreme depression and misery I was thinking chiefly of myself. Of course, I am curiously constituted, quite artifi...

I did so sooner than I expected. Lord Gascoyne, whose heart had never been strong, succumbed under the strain and anxiety of the whole affair, and I awoke one morning in prison...

I suppose the feelings of a human being awaiting extinction on a near date fixed by the law must vary according to temperament. In this, as in most things, ignorance has its adv...