Madam: A Novel

IT was difficult to explain the impulse which drew them one after another into the ante-room. On ordinary occasions it would have been the height of bad manners; and there was n...

Arthur Rivers had come home on the top of the wave of prosperity; his little war was over, and if it were not he who had gained the day, he yet had a large share of its honors....

Two days after this, while as yet there had appeared no further solution of the mystery, Roland Hamerton came hastily one morning up the sloping paths of Bonport into the garden...

When John Trevanion questioned Everard, as already recorded, the young man, though greatly disconcerted, had made him a very unexpected reply. He had the boldness to say what wa...

Roland Hamerton was not one of those on whom Mr. Rivers made this favorable impression. He would fain indeed have found something against him, something which would have justifi...

The Hotel Venat that night closed its doors upon many anxious and troubled souls. A certain agitation seemed to have crept through the house itself. The landlady was disturbed i...

The moon was shining in full glory upon the lake, so brilliant and broad that the great glittering expanse of water retained something like a tinge of its natural blue in the wo...

Next day there was a great concourse of people at Highcourt, disturbing the echoes which had lain so silent during that week of gloom. Carriages with the finest blazons, quarter...

Johnny’s little social successes were so frequent that the memory of the poor lady who had lost her child at his age soon died away, and the toy got broken and went the way of a...

The arrival of John Trevanion made a great difference to the family group, which had become absorbed, as women are so apt to be, in the circle of little interests about them, an...

The two men went out to Bonport together, and on the way John Trevanion, half revolted that he should have to tell it, half relieved to talk of it to another man, and see how th...

Rosalind Trevanion was a girl who had never had a lover--at least, such was her own conviction. She even resented the fact a little, thinking it wonderful that when all the girl...

Russell left Highcourt in such wild commotion of mind and temper, such rage, grief, compunction, and pain, that she was incapable of any real perception of what had happened, an...

Mrs. Trevanion remained for some time in London, where she was joined reluctantly, after a few days, by Edmund. This young man had not been educated on the level of Highcourt. H...

Rosalind came down to breakfast next morning at the usual hour. She was the most important member of the household party, and everything depended upon her. Sometimes Aunt Sophy...

He was placed between the ladies at the _table d’hôte_. Mrs. Lennox, on her side, told the story of what had happened to the lady on her other side, and Rosalind was appealed to...

Rosalind herself was much aroused by this discussion. She thought it unjust and cruel. She had done nothing to call for such a reproach. She had not attempted to make Mr. Rivers...

The events of the night on which Mrs. Trevanion left Highcourt had at this period of the family story fallen into that softened oblivion which covers the profoundest scars of th...

Thus Mrs. Trevanion went away out of reach and knowledge of everything that belonged to her old life. She had not been very happy in that life. The principal actor in it, her hu...

The gentlemen who came into the drawing-room at Highcourt were four in number: the master of the house, his brother, the doctor, and a young man fresh from the university, who w...

The incident of that evening had a very disturbing effect upon the family at Bonport. Little Amy, waking next morning much astonished to find herself in Rosalind’s room, and ver...

Presently they all assembled in the hall--a miserable party. The door of the breakfast-room stood open, but no one went near it. They stood in a knot, all huddled together, spea...

This conversation, or series of conversations, took place shortly before the time at which this history begins, and it was very soon after that the strange course of circumstanc...

“I married her without a penny,” Mr. Trevanion was saying. “I was a fool for my pains. If you think you will purchase attention and submission in that way you are making a confo...

Mr. Trevanion’s attack wore off by degrees, and by and by he resumed his old habits, appearing once more at dinner, talking as of old after that meal, coming into the drawing-ro...

It was not on that day, but the next, that Uncle John arrived so suddenly, bringing with him the friend whom he had picked up in Switzerland. This was a man still young, but not...

“The mother might have managed better, Rosie--why wasn’t I sent for? I’m the eldest and the heir, and I ought to have been here. Poor old papa--he would miss me, I know. He was...

The hall was dimly lighted, the fire dying out in the great fireplace, everything shadowy, cold, without cheer or comfort. Mr. Trevanion had been conveyed to his room between th...

The day had come which Rosalind had looked forward to as the decisive moment. The day on which her life of submission was to be over, her independent action to begin. But to Riv...

It was not very long after this that one of “England’s little wars” broke out--not a little war in so far as loss and cost went, but yet one of those convulsions that go on far...

“All pulmonary,” said Dr. Beaton. “I know the man you mean. He has been hanging about for a month, more or less, with no visible object. To tell the truth--”

Rosalind spent a very restless night. She could not sleep, and the rain coming down in torrents irritated her with its ceaseless pattering. She thought, she could not tell why,...

Next day, as they drove out in the usual afternoon hour while Mr. Trevanion took his nap after luncheon, a little incident happened which was nothing, yet gave Rosalind, who was...

Towards the end of the summer, during the height of which Mrs. Lennox’s party had returned to the Italian lakes, one of the friends she made at Cadenabbia represented to that go...

Mrs. Lennox’s cure went on through the greater part of the month of September, and the friendship that had been begun so successfully grew into intimacy perhaps in a shorter tim...

In an easy house, where punctuality is not rampant, the hour before dinner is pleasant to young people. The lady of the house is gone to dress. If she is beginning to feel the w...

Mrs. Lennox’s house was not a great country-house like Highcourt. It was within a mile of Clifton, a pretty house, set in pretty grounds, with a few fields about it, and space e...

As so often happens when all is prepared and ready for the catastrophe, the stroke of fate was averted. That night proved better than the last, and then there passed two or thre...

When Mrs. Trevanion came to Highcourt, she brought with her a maid who had, during all the sixteen years of her married life, remained with her without the slightest breach of f...

A large drawing-room in a country-house, in the perfect warmth, stillness, and good order of after-dinner, awaiting the ladies coming in; the fire perfection, reflecting itself...

The house was in a curious commotion up-stairs. The nursery apartments were at the end of a passage, but on the same level with those of Mrs. Trevanion, in which Jane, Madam’s a...

“Well,” said Dr. Beaton, rubbing his hands as he came forward, “at last we are tolerably comfortable. I have got him to bed without much more difficulty than usual, and I hope h...

When the party arrived at the hotel and Aunt Sophy was informed of what had happened, her excitement was great. The children were caressed and scolded in a breath. After a while...

Mrs. Lennox was struck dumb with amazement when she heard what her brother’s morning’s occupation had been. “Taken a house!” she cried, with a scream which summoned the whole pa...

John Trevanion remained in the empty house. It had seemed that morning as if nothing could be more miserable: but it was more miserable now, when every cheerful element had gone...

Mr. Trevanion was a great personage in the county. It was fit that all honor should be done him. All the greatest persons in the neighborhood had to be convened to conduct him i...

Mrs. Trevanion appeared at dinner as usual, coming into the drawing-room at the last moment, to the great surprise of the gentlemen, who stared and started as if at a ghost as s...

A resolution thus taken is not, however, strong enough to overcome the habits which have grown with years. Mrs. Trevanion had been so long in the background that she shrank from...

Arthur Rivers had come to Clifton not to visit a new friend, but to see his own family, who lived there. They were not, perhaps, quite on the same level as the Trevanions and Mr...

It was a long walk through the wind and blasts of rain, and the country roads were very dark and wet--not a night for a woman to be out in, much less a lady used to drive everyw...

All was dark; the stars twinkling ineffectually in the sky, so far off, like spectators merely, or distant sentinels, not helpers; the trees in all their winter nakedness rustli...

Russell meant no harm to her master. In the curious confusion which one passionate feeling brings into an undisciplined mind, she had even something that might be called affecti...

It happened after these events that sickness crept into Mrs. Lennox’s cheerful house. One of the children had a lingering fever; and Aunt Sophy herself was troubled with headach...

“To--nobody, Uncle John!” she said, in her surprise at the sudden question which came over her shoulder, and, turning round, waited till he joined her. She had changed her mind...

Johnny throve, notwithstanding his visions. He woke up in the morning altogether unaffected, so far as appeared, by what he saw at night. He had always been more or less the cen...

There is nothing more strange in all the experiences of humanity than the manner in which a great convulsion either in nature or in human history ceases after a while to affect...

Reginald Trevanion of Highcourt had made at thirty a marriage which was altogether suitable, and everything that the marriage of a young squire of good family and considerable w...

While this intercourse was going on, and Mr. Everard became more and more the associate of the ladies, the little shock that had been given them by the result of Johnny’s excite...

Rosalind left her uncle with the thrill of her resolution in all her veins. She met, as she crossed the ante-room, Rivers, who had just come in and was standing waiting for a re...

Down below, in the garden of the hotel, all was cheerful enough, and most unlike the existence of any mystery here or elsewhere. The night was very soft and mild, though dark, t...

Madam was conveyed with the greatest care and tenderness to the best room in the house, Mrs. Lennox’s own room, which it was a great satisfaction to that kind soul to give up to...

Roland Hamerton did not find any trace of her. He had pledged himself easily, in utter ignorance of all ways and means, to find her, knowing nothing, neither how to set about su...

When Rosalind came to herself she had found little Amy in her white nightgown standing by her, clinging round her, her pretty hair, all tumbled and in disorder, hanging about th...

Rivers had stood listening all through this strange scene, he scarcely knew why. He was roused now to the inappropriateness of his presence here. What had he to do in the midst...

people did. But he did not mean it--how could he mean it? To say that mamma wanted to break his neck if she did not put his pillow as he liked it, to accuse her of a systematic...