Rose of the World

And now Rosamond's fingers hovered over the case of letters. Well did her heart forebode whose missives lay treasured there. Nevertheless, the sight of the handwriting struck he...

Rosamond, my rose, I took you before your hour--but I was as one who rides past and sees his flower bloom, and knows that he must pluck it in all haste, to wear on his heart, or...

Aspasia awoke from a heavy dreamless sleep with a sense of panic. Her heart was beating violently. She sat up in bed, listening eagerly, through the hammering of her pulses.

"Oh yes! there's a postscript; he wants an answer immediately to Claridge's--and who do you think was their fellow traveller? Dr. Châtelard--he's to be at Melbury, too. It's all...

There was one moment of outward triviality which yet, to the looker-on, was charged with a pain almost beyond bearing; it was when English, with the lather white upon his chin a...

His nature was all unused to introspection. By character and breeding he was given to hold in scorn all troubles that were not concrete, all conflicts conducted in those nebulou...

There was sunshine enough without to have tempted the most obstinate recluse into the fields. But as little as she had heeded November rain did Rosamond now heed the brightness...

Through the door left open by Sir Arthur the sound of the fountain playing in the great inner baths fell soothingly on the ear. A breeze gently swayed the scented matting blinds...

Rosamond, my wife, I have decided to lead the counter-attack myself to-night. Leicester is incapacitated. Bethune's head is stronger than mine, now, and should the suspense be l...

Jani once more lifted her face. In the livid dawn it looked grey with fear. Then she was gone from him with a scarcely perceptible rustle, a whisper of soft garments, like some...

So it was with Raymond Bethune; and if he came to view himself with surprise, still more inexplicable to him was the new Lady Gerardine as he learned to regard her. According to...

Lady Aspasia and M. Châtelard were seated one on each side of the fireplace, fairly monopolising the benefits of the situation. Although the thought of Sir Arthur, upstairs with...

He crumpled a mass of paper violently together and flung it into the flames, thrusting it down among the embers with his hand. He felt the startled amazement growing upon her, a...

It is our fate as a nation, head and heart of a world empire, that much of our manhood must pursue its career far away from home. And it is our strength that these English sons...

The copse where she had chosen to rest was on the higher downs, and before her the land fell away gently yet so surely that the high chimney-stack of the Old Ancient House would...

Lady Gerardine fell back upon her pillow, and then, lifting the heavy mass of her hair, swept it across her face like a sheltering wing, as if, even in the dim room, she could n...

"Well, we're a pretty queer lot down there, in the Old Ancient House," she cried, in her high merry pipe. "What with the Thug plotting--I know he's a Thug, whatever you may say,...

"Excuse, your Excellency," said Muhammed. He drew himself together with a little effort, stepped across to the open dining-room door, and laid down his burden. Sir Arthur follow...

Raymond Bethune, of the Guides, jerked his head upwards in melancholy and bitter confirmation. In the midst of his own preoccupation and disappointment he could not, however, he...

The receipt of a letter from Lady Aspasia Melbury was the first drop of balm in his Excellency's unwontedly distasteful cup. She pooh-poohed his old-fashioned suggestion that th...

Matters had progressed according to programme. M. Châtelard, a pleasant tubby man with a bald head, a cropped pointed beard drawing upon greyness, a twinkling observant eye, a s...

There they stood opposite each other--the old and the young. The most complete contrast, perhaps, that it was possible to imagine. Harry English, erect, square-shouldered, extra...

Of the three who had loved her, for whom was that smile? Certes, not for the poor Sir! And of the other two? (I must here frankly set down the humiliating admission, to me, that...