Servants of Sin: A Romance

"This," said Walter Clarges, as he thrust open the door, "has been my home for the last four years. You will find it comfortable enough, I hope. Let me assist you to remove your...

The night wind rose as the hours went by, so that at last the cool breezes brought ease, and, in a manner, restoration to those unhappy women lying or sitting upon the slope of...

The agreeable ceremony of marrying the prisoners to one another, ere despatching them to Louisiana as convicts, was going on rapidly in the yard of the Prison of St. Martin des...

The little watering-place of Eaux St. Fer, which stood on the slope of a hill some few leagues outside Montpelier, and nearer than that city to the southern sea-board, was very...

"If," said Lolive, the Duke's valet, to himself later that day, "he would speak, would say something--not sit there like one dead, I could endure it very well. But, mon Dieu! he...

It was during the day preceding the night on which those unhappy, forlorn women were conducted down to the north gates of the pest-ridden city that Walter Clarges himself entere...

Midnight sounded from the tower of the ancient cathedral of Marseilles--the deep tones of the bell, in unison with all the bells of the other churches in the stricken city, bein...

The berceuse had passed through Aix and was nearing Gardanne-le-Pin, leaving to its right the dead lake known as l'Etang de Berre, while, rising up on its left, were the last an...

Left alone by Marion's departure, Laure endeavoured to sleep once more and to obtain some return of the strength that she had lost in that long, horrible march which she, in com...

The prisons had not emptied quite as swiftly as the authorities desired after they had been stuffed full of real and imaginary criminals who were to people New France, with a vi...

Down the Rue de la Bourse, wherein the women of la Châine had passed the latter part of the night, the rays of the sun began to stream horizontally as it rose far away over the...

Vandecque never discovered who that woman was, whence she came, nor where she vanished to. Never, though he brought to bear upon the quest which he instituted for her an amount...

When Walter Clarges was left lying on the footway of the Rue des Saints Apostoliques, on that cold, wintry night after Vandecque's rapier had struck through his left lung, there...

Almost did those unhappy women of the cordon, or chain-gang--those skeletons clad in rags--thank God that something was occurring down below in the great city, the nature of whi...

Aided by the light of the moon which now soared high in the heavens, she being in her second quarter, the women--of whom there still remained many out of the original number tha...

Two months before the chain-gangs set out for Marseilles from the Prison of St. Martin des Champs, namely at the end of March, Walter Clarges descended from a hackney coach outs...

The night was close at hand as those two men came together, they being brought so by the slow, heavy approach of Desparre towards where the other sat his horse watching him. The...

Whatever effect such musings might have brought forth, even to bloodshed, had Walter Clarges continued to ride close behind the carriage containing his enemy--of which fact he w...

Lifting aside the heavy tapestry that hung down in front of the window of the tourelle which formed an angle of the room--a window from which the Bastille might be seen frowning...

The company had assembled in the saloon of the Garland and formed as fashionable a collection of the upper aristocracy as any which could perhaps be brought together outside Par...

The chain gangs--the men a mile ahead of the women--marched but slowly on their way; indeed, it was impossible that they should progress very fast. Some, as has been said, espec...

Some betterment of his circumstances must have come to Vandecque between the time when he had returned from the South and now (how it had come, whether by villainy or honest lab...

When Walter left his wife it was with the intention of proceeding to the offices of the Louisiana Company, known more generally as Le Mississippi, situated in the Rue Quincampoi...

The Duc Desparre was making his toilette for his approaching marriage--about to take place at midday at the church of St. Gervais, which was conveniently placed between the stre...

The usual guests who figure at stage weddings had assembled in the salon. Evidently, the audience whispered, one to another, it was a marriage contract, at least, which was abou...

Marion Lascelles had hoped, had prayed that this moment would come at last; that at some future day Laure's husband would stand face to face with his wife again; that he would s...

When he brought her to this apartment she had supposed that, from this day, there was to commence a loveless life such as was so often witnessed in the marriages of convenience...

An evening or so after the meeting between Laure Vauxcelles and Walter Clarges at the gambling hell kept by the Demoiselles Montjoie, Vandecque sat in the saloon of his apartmen...

Outside the snow had ceased to fall; in its place had come the clear, crisp, and biting stillness of an intense frost, accompanied by that penetrating cold which gives those who...

The darkness of the night was over the city as Walter Clarges went forth; a darkness that was almost weird and unearthly in that gloomy street--far down at the other end of whic...