Only a clod

Ensign Harcourt Lowther, of her Majesty’s 51st Light Infantry, sat staring out into his garden at Port Arthur, watching a couple of convict gardeners--who were going about their...

While Mr. Lowther went to eat his dinner with the hospitable magistrate, Francis Tredethlyn did his work briskly; folding his master’s coats and waistcoats, brushing boots, clea...

It was late when Mr. Lowther came home from his friend the magistrate’s. The faint flush that lighted up his face, and the unwonted lustre of his eyes, bore testimony to the mer...

Francis Tredethlyn had to wait a very long time before there could be any possibility of a letter from the Gray’s Inn solicitors, but he endured the delay with perfect tranquill...

When the jaded horses of the “Electric” coach from Falmouth stopped before the Crown Inn at Landresdale, in the county of Cornwall, on the 13th of July, 1852, the landlord of th...

The sun was low when Francis Tredethlyn left the Crown Inn, and walked slowly up the village street. The sun was low, and already a crimson glory flickered here and there upon t...

From the bleak moorland on the Cornish hills, where no tree can flourish, and where the sweeping breath of the salt sea-breeze nips the tender verdure, and makes the quiet sheep...

The château in which some of the banished descendants of Louis the Great had set up their household gods, in the shape of a most exquisite collection of artistic treasures, was...

Captain Masters drove Lionel Hillary’s phaeton to the Cedars, when the crowd in the sunny gardens before the Château de Bourbon had dispersed, and only a few scattered groups st...

Francis Tredethlyn went back to his hotel in Covent Garden after that quiet dinner at the Cedars, and his mind was full of the new images suggested by that brief glimpse of a li...

Mrs. Burfield was a pale-faced and pinched-looking person, hollow-cheeked and spare of figure, who in these latter days would have inspired a stranger with the idea that she was...

Francis Tredethlyn went back to the hotel in Covent Garden with the little sheepskin-covered volume appertaining to the gentleman who called himself Robert Lesley, safely stowed...

Francis Tredethlyn spent the bright summer Sunday afternoon and evening at the Cedars. Mr. Hillary generally filled his house with company on the day of rest; and hard-working c...

The river was gray and dim in the twilight by this time; for the first half of October was gone, and the dusky shadows gathered early on Mr. Hillary’s lawn. Francis Tredethlyn f...

The private theatricals at the Cedars were postponed till Christmas, and in the middle of November Mr. Hillary removed his household to a big bow-windowed habitation at the west...

Mr. Hillary escorted his daughter and Julia Desmond back to Twickenham upon the day following that night-scene of anguish and terror. They left Brighton rather late in the day,...

Maude Hillary did not rise very early after that New Year’s entertainment at the Cedars; painful emotions, troubles, doubts, and perplexities, that had been unknown to her throu...

From the second day of the New Year things went pleasantly enough in the Twickenham household. How could Maude do otherwise than rejoice in the salvation of her father’s honour-...

After that meeting in Hyde Park, Francis Tredethlyn came very often to the Cedars; so often, as to engender a vague uneasiness in Miss Hillary’s mind. She knew that he loved her...

Francis Tredethlyn, now so frequent a visitor at the Cedars, happened to present himself there upon the day after that on which Maude had come to an understanding with her fathe...

Within a month from that night on which the merchant’s daughter and Francis Tredethlyn had lingered so long together on the terrace up the river, Maude Hillary sat at her desk i...

Harcourt Lowther, very quick of apprehension always, especially so where his own interests were concerned, had taken careful note of these broken sentences uttered by Maude Hill...

Absorbed in the conflicting tortures and delights of his bondage, Francis Tredethlyn had thought very little of that missing cousin who had once been so near and dear to him. No...

She was so soon to be his wife! Yes, October was near at hand. Already the woods and hills beyond the Star and Garter were bright with autumnal tints of vivid orange and glowing...

Maude Tredethlyn took her new life very pleasantly. Her father was happy. There had been a reaction in the City; things were going very well for the Australian merchant; and Fra...

That unfortunate meeting on the stairs made a very deep impression upon Maude Tredethlyn. She had never before encountered drunkenness; and it was one of those sins which seemed...

Under the perpetual influence of his friend and master, Harcourt Lowther, Mr. Tredethlyn’s days and nights were so fully occupied that he had very little leisure for serious tho...

Francis Tredethlyn drove his friend down to Richmond at a rattling pace, but he scarcely spoke half-a-dozen words throughout the journey; and Harcourt Lowther, keeping the watch...

Harcourt Lowther, calling at the stuccoed mansion in time for Mrs. Tredethlyn’s afternoon tea, found a dark and dashing young lady comfortably established in a luxurious amber d...

His elder brother, heir to all that Robert Lowther, of Lowther Hall, Hampshire, had to leave, and expectant heir to the more important possessions of a very wealthy maiden aunt,...

That ponderous Mr. Grunderson, who plunged heavily down upon Maude’s central ottoman, a miraculous combination of upholstery and floriculture--that shining bald-headed Mr. Grund...

The party in Mrs. Tredethlyn’s opera-box that evening was a very pleasant one. Whatever business had taken Harcourt Lowther to Richmond must have been tolerably satisfactory in...

After this there was no more said between Harcourt Lowther and Mrs. Tredethlyn upon the subject of her husband’s delinquencies. They walked slowly back to the stile, where Julia...

The letter which Francis Tredethlyn wrote in his study was a long one; a very painful one to write, as it seemed, from the face of the writer, and the weary sigh which every now...

Harcourt Lowther had never played so bad a rubber as that with which he beguiled the evening while waiting Francis Tredethlyn’s appearance at the little bachelor-party assembled...

Maude shut herself in her own rooms after her interview with Francis, and refused to see any one except Julia. She wanted some one to cling to in her sudden distress, and was fa...

It is strange what virtues we are apt to discover in the thing we have lost. After recovering from her fainting-fit, Maude Tredethlyn wept as bitterly for the loss of her husban...

All through the dreary day, and far into the still more dreary night, Maude Tredethlyn waited and listened for her husband’s coming. She could not believe that he would hold to...

A long miserable week wore itself slowly out after the night in which Francis Tredethlyn had turned his back upon a house which he had never been allowed to find a home. Through...

Harcourt Lowther had his copy of the great journal on the day when Maude read that horrible paragraph. Roderick had called at Stuccoville during Mrs. Tredethlyn’s seclusion, and...

Maude Tredethlyn sat alone in her spacious chamber: oh, so spacious, so splendid, so dreary, so ghastly, with a tall carved walnut-wood bedstead that was like one of the tombs i...

Maude left Paddington by an afternoon express, and reached Exeter after a journey that was long and wearisome even to a modern traveller, for whom the way has been smoothed so d...