Our Friend the Charlatan

As he waited for his breakfast, never served to time, Mr. Lashmar drummed upon the window-pane, and seemed to watch a blackbird lunching with much gusto about the moist lawn of...

In the moments when Dyce Lashmar was neither aware of being observed nor consciously occupied with the pressing problems of his own existence, his face expressed a natural amiab...

Hair the hue of an autumn elm-leaf; eyes green or blue, as the light fell upon them; a long, thin face, faintly freckled over its creamy pallor, with narrow arch of eyebrow, ind...

In the morning he had a letter from Mrs. Woolstan. Opening it hurriedly, he was pleased, but not surprised, to discover a cheque folded in the note-paper. Iris wrote that, as a...

So next morning he packed his bag, drove to Euston, and by mid-day was at Hollingford. The town, hitherto known to him only by name, had little charm of situation or feature, bu...

Wind and rain interfered with Lashmar's project for the early morning. He had meant to ramble about the town for an hour before going out to Shawe. Unable to do this, he bought...

On his return, Lashmar found a letter from Mrs. Woolstan awaiting him at Upper Woburn Place. The lady wrote in rather an agitated strain; she had to report that Leonard was alre...

Under the roof at Rivenoak was an attic which no one ever entered. The last person who had done so was Sir Quentin Ogram; on a certain day in eighteen hundred and--something, th...

It was natural that Lady Ogram should from the beginning have suspected Miss Bride of a peculiar interest in Lashmar. When first she introduced her friend's name, Constance a li...

It was not merely her animus against Mr. Robb which supported Lady Ogram's belief in the future of the Liberals at Hollingford. A certain restiveness could be noted in the publi...

It was a week after the departure of Dyce Lashmar. Lady Ogram had lived in agitation, a state which she knew to be the worst possible for her health. Several times she had taken...

Though Mrs. Toplady seldom rose much before midday, it was not the mere luxury of repose that kept her in her chamber. As a rule, she awoke from refreshing sleep at eight o'cloc...

A few days later, Lashmar found on his breakfast table a copy of the _Hollingford Express_, blue-pencilled at an editorial paragraph which he read with interest. The leaded line...

Having an imperious Will and an intelligence merely practical, it was natural for Lady Ogram to imagine that, even as she imposed her authority on others in outward things, so h...

Discontent, the malady of the age, had taken hold upon him. No ignoble form of the disease; for his mind, naturally in accord with generous thoughts, repelled every suggestion w...

For a week after Lady Ogram's return, Dr. Baldwin called daily at Rivenoak. His patient, he said, was suffering from over-exertion; had she listened to his advice, she would nev...

Pillow-propped at her morning studies, the humourist of Pont Street, as she glanced rapidly over the close-printed pages of a trans-Atlantic monthly, had her eye caught by the w...

"At last," declared Mrs. Lashmar, "it really looks as if Dyce was going to do something. I've just been writing to Lady Susan, and I have let her see unmistakably what I think o...

It lay beside his plate on the breakfast table, and Dyce eyed it with curiosity. The backward-sloping hand was quite unknown to him. He tapped at an egg, and still scrutinised t...

May awoke very early next morning. It was broad daylight, however, and she hastened to look at her watch. Reassured as to the time, her next thought regarded the weather; she st...

Lady Ogram's life had been much guided by superstition. No one knew it, or suspected it, for this was among the tokens of her origin which she carefully kept out of sight. Throu...

Piqued by the uneventfulness of the preceding day, May Tomalin stole forth this morning in a decidedly adventurous frame of mind. She scorned danger; she desired excitement. Dup...

At the door of the breakfast-room, Miss Bride was approached by Lady Ogram's maid, who in an undertone informed her that Dr. Baldwin had been sent for. Lady Ogram had passed a v...

Lady Ogram stood up, not without difficulty. She took a step or two forwards, as if trying whether she had the strength to walk. Then she looked at her two companions, who had b...

Dyce, whose nerves were in a tremulous state, did not easily command himself to the quiet dignity which the occasion required. He saw that the baronet regarded him with somethin...

So, after all, Constance would be his wife. One moment's glimpse of a dread possibility that neither she nor May Tomalin benefited by Lady Ogram's will had sufficed to make him...

Lashmar walked hack to Hollingford, and reached the hotel without any consciousness of the road by which he had come. He felt as tired as if he had been walking all day. When he...

Lord Dymchurch went down into Somerset. His younger sister was in a worse state of health than he had been led to suppose; there could be no thought of removing her from home. A...

"When you receive this letter, you will have already seen the result. I knew how it would be, but tried to hope because you were hoping. My poll is better than that of the last...

The wedding was to be a very quiet one. Lashmar would have preferred the civil ceremony, at the table of the registrar, with musty casuals for witnesses; but Iris shrank from th...