Stella Maris

“Be gentle with her,” he had recommended. “Don't try to force her confidence. Don't let Ransome feel her pulse too often or give her physic. Talk about the tropics, and try to s...

UNITY watched the beloved being as only a woman can watch man or a sailor can watch sea and sky. To each, signs and portents are vital matters. She noted every shadow on his fac...

JOHN RISCA, at thirty-four, with a ward of twenty, and with the normal hope of a man's life withered at the root, regarded himself as an elderly man. He looked older than his ye...

THINGS happened as John and Lady Blount had planned them. Sister Theophila, having satisfied herself that Unity Blake was not a second time being thrown to the wolves--Lady Blou...

OUTSIDE the house in Kilbum were stationed a hearse and two carriages, stared at by a knot of idlers. Within was felt the pervasive presence of a noiselessly moving, black-attir...

MISS LINDON moved her goods and chattels, together with Dandy, Dickie, and Phoebe, into the little house at Kilburn. John and Unity followed with the furniture he had procured o...

THUS it came to pass that, for the sake of Stellamaris, Risca remained in London and fought with beasts in Fenton Square. Sometimes he got the better of the beasts, and sometime...

THE next morning Stella was putting on her hat, a foamy thing of white tulle and pink roses, before her mirror, when an audacious thought came dancing into her head. It dizzied...

IT was a sullen night in mid-August, following a breathless day and an angry sunset that had shed a copper-coloured glow above a bank of cloud. The great windows of the drawing-...

CONSTABLE, dragging the feet of an old hound, mounted the stairs behind Stellamaris and followed her into the sea-chamber, and to the south window, whither she went instinctivel...

IT will be remembered that Stellamaris was a young person of bountiful fortune. She had stocks and shares and mortgages and landed property faithfully administered under a deed...

The Great Dane, the Lord High Constable, who was stretched out on his side, with relaxed, enormous limbs, on the hearth-rug, lifted his massive head for a second and glanced at...

IN after-time Herold's memory of that disastrous night and the succeeding days was that of a peculiarly lucid nightmare in which he seemed to have acted without volition or cons...

A WHISTLING youth who lumbered up the path saved Stellamaris. There was nothing about him suggestive of the dragon-slaying and princess-rescuing hero of the fairy-tale, nor did...

STELLA loved the garden, even when autumn came and flowers were rare; for still there was the gold and russet glory of the trees. Also the garden was a bit of her Promised Land;...

THE same frown darkened Risca's brow the next day as he waited for admittance at his Aunt Gladys's door. It was such a futile little door to such a futile little house; he could...

WINTER came and melted into spring. Physically Stella had progressed beyond all hopes. Like the Lady in “The Sensitive Plant,” she walked a ruling grace about the garden of the...

John Risca, the woman's husband, who had been sitting at the solicitor's table, rose, watched her disappear, and then, the object of all curious eyes, with black brow and square...

Thenceforward a humming confusion reigned in the Channel House. The story of the miraculous recovery spread through Southcliff. Sir Oliver and Lady Blount held a little court ev...

THE making and the executing of a good resolution are two entirely different actions. The former is a process as instantaneous as you please--one born of passion, heaven-sent in...

ONE evening by the last post John received a letter bearing the prison stamp and addressed to him under the care of the firm of solicitors who had defended his wife. It ran:

Miss Lindon, in pathetic despair, had abandoned her notion of turning Unity into a young lady of young-ladylike accomplishments. She could perform whatever marvels of exquisite...

IT was a puzzle to John as much as to the palpitating lady, and in the maze of his puzzledom the gleam of humour that visited him during their interview lost its way. Walter Her...

That was not her real name. No one could have christened an inoffensive babe so absurdly. Her mother had, indeed, through the agency of godfathers and godmothers, called her Ste...