Squire Arden; volume 3 of 3

“How is Miss Pimpernel?” Arthur asked as he entered the house. He went in with a great appearance of anxiety and haste, and he repeated his question to a maid who was just prepa...

While Arthur went to the Red House, Edgar had been exerting himself to still all the roads and deaden every sound about Sally Timms’ cottage. Sally’s boys considered the operati...

The dogcart reached home with news of Edgar’s approach before he himself arrived. It passed him in the avenue, and so did Sally Timms, who had rushed to the Hall to carry the ne...

Next morning was a calm bright summer Sunday, one of those days which are real Sabbaths--moments of rest. It was like the “sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,” of George Her...

Mr. Fielding preached one of his gentle little sermons upon love to your neighbour on that especial morning. The Doctor had been quiet, and had not bothered the Rector for some...

“The fact is, I am a little put out by having to change my quarters so abruptly,” said Arthur Arden. “I am going to Scotland in the beginning of September, but that is a long wa...

More than one strange incident happened at Arden that soft July night. Mr. Fielding was seated in his library in the evening, after all the Sunday work was over. He did not work...

Edgar went to his own room, with a certain oppression on his mind, to seek those papers which surely his sister gave the most exaggerated importance to. It seemed ridiculous to...

Arthur Arden felt himself very much at a loss next morning, and could not make it out. The brother and sister had left him to his own devices the night before, and again he foun...

Edgar was thankful for the morning air, the freshness of the breeze, the quietness of the world outside, where there was nobody to look curiously at him--nobody to speak to him....

Edgar walked on and on, through the village, over the perfumy common, which lay basking in the intense unbroken sunshine. All the mossy nooks under the gorse bushes were warm as...

The state of affairs at Arden on this strange day was very perplexing to Arthur. Clare did not make her appearance even at dinner, but there were sounds of going and coming on t...

Well! He had listened--he had disgraced himself--he was humbled in his own eyes, and would be lost in Clare’s, should she ever find it out. And what had he made by it? He had di...

Edgar rode over the verdant country, wearily, languidly, with a heart that for once was closed to its influence. He was tired of the whole matter. It no longer seemed to him so...

One life over and another begun--one over and another begun: the words chimed in his ears as he rode away. And great was the consternation of the servants at Thorne when he rode...

To say that the Doctor was utterly confounded by this revelation was to say little. He had not begun so much as to think what it meant when Edgar left him. An impatience which w...

And yet amid all this excitement and lurid expectation, how strange it was to go through the established formulas of life: the dinner, the indifferent conversation, the regulate...

Clare rose up instinctively, feeling the solemnity of the occasion to be such that she could not meet it otherwise. She was paler than ever, if that was possible--marble white--...

The others seated themselves once more round the library table. There was a change, however, in their circumstances and position which would have been immediately manifest to an...

Jeanie was lying propped up on pillows, struggling for breath. Her face, which had always been like that of an angel, was more visionary, more celestial than ever; the golden ha...

Arthur Arden went up to the house, which he was now convinced was his own, with the strangest mixture of feelings. He was so confused and overwhelmed by all the events of the ni...

The reader may be weary of hearing of nights which went over in agitation, and mornings which rose upon an excitement not yet calmed down. But it is inevitable in such a crisis...

Lady Augusta came in with a disturbed countenance and traces of anxiety on her brow. She was alone, and though her good heart, and another pleader besides, had impelled her to t...

Clare left Arden that same afternoon. She came downstairs with her veil over her face, trembling, yet perhaps hoping to be met upon the way. Even Edgar was not aware of the mome...

Miss Somers was seated very erect on her sofa when Clare went in--more erect than she had been known to be for many a day--and was at the moment engaged in a discussion with Mer...

It is unnecessary to say that to one at least of the two people whose behaviour she thus discussed in her heart Clare was unjust. Edgar had neither forgotten her nor was he glad...

Mrs. Murray started violently, and uttered a low cry. She turned to him with a look of sudden joy, that made her dark eyes expand and dilate. But when she saw Edgar’s face, a ch...

“These are our terms, Mr. Arden,” said Mr. Fazakerly. “It is, of course, entirely in your own hands to accept or reject them: a provision such as has been usually made for the d...

Time flies in the midst of great events; and yet it is long to look back upon, doubling and redoubling the moments which have been great with feeling--filling the spectator with...