Tetherstones

There was a sheet of water in the Palace garden, fed by a bubbling spring. Cypress and old yew trees grew along its banks, and here and there the crumbling ruins of an old monas...

Who was that whispering behind the screen—Lucy and Nell, could it be, audible as ever, though hidden from sight? It was like a long-forgotten story, begun years since and never...

He left her, and she took her stand at a corner of the steps, idly watching the press of people that thronged past her on to the pavement. Her sleep had left her slightly dazed,...

Late in the afternoon Maggie came in, her plump, rosy face drawn and sad. She came and hung over the bed for a space in silence. Ruth was lying as she had lain throughout, with...

An owl was hooting in the moonlit distance, and the ripple, ripple, ripple of running water filled in the silences. A vast loneliness—the loneliness of the moors at night which...

The deep tones of the Cathedral organ thrilled across the quiet garden. There came the chanting of boys’ voices, and then a silence. She wandered on through the enchanted stilln...

Whether he noted any agitation on her part or not she could not say, but he was very emphatic in his orders to her to rest, and impressed upon Dolly the necessity for absolute q...

“At the Stones again to-night.” All through that morning in the corn-field the words were running in Frances’ brain. She tried to sketch, but her hand seemed to have lost its cu...

How long she wandered with the child, stumbling through the darkness, Frances never knew. All that she realized and that with a deep thankfulness, was that her guide was quite s...

“He is still sleeping very peacefully,” said Mrs. Dermot, with a grateful look at Frances. “You had a very composing effect upon him this afternoon. I hope it did not tire you v...

Two days later, Frances went out into the garden. She leaned upon Dolly’s arm, for she was very weak, and Lucy came behind, carrying rugs and cushions. They settled her on a cou...

Twelve deep notes sounded from the clock-tower of the Cathedral, and the Bishop’s secretary dropped her hands from her typewriter and turned her face to the open window with a q...

“Don’t take any notice of anything he says!” whispered Nurse Dolly. “Just sit beside him and keep him quiet! He’s got some queer fancies, poor old man. Sure you won’t mind them?”

She came to herself like a dazed mariner flung ashore by the breakers, hardly believing that the peril was over. A great weakness was upon her and she knew that she could not st...

She stood before him in the book-lined study where so many of her hours had been spent in bitter bondage of body and spirit. The table with its typewriter was in its accustomed...

“Pleased to see you, Miss Thorold,” Oliver touched his hat with his whip and gave her his friendly smile of welcome. “A bad business this about the little girl. They’re all very...

The soft thudding of cows’ feet through the red mud of a Devon lane—the chirruping call of a girl’s voice in their rear—the warning note of a blackbird in the hedge—and the magi...

London and a cold grey pall of fog! Frances looked forth from the carriage-window and suppressed a shiver. The grim ugliness of the great buildings that bordered the line seemed...

The door was shut, but there came to her the sound of voices in the distance, and she listened intently, holding her breath. At any moment he might return, at any moment the dre...

Frances slept badly that night. There were a good many things to trouble her and keep her brain at work. The thought of Maggie’s clandestine love affair worried her most, though...

It was late in the morning when she awoke in response to a persistent knocking at the door, on the opening of which she found a bare-armed country-girl who informed her without...

The days that succeeded her flight from Tetherstones left an ineradicable impression upon Frances. She maintained her steady refusal to accompany Rotherby to London, but she did...

London skies and ceaseless rain, and the roar and swish of London traffic over the streaming roads! The tramp of many hurrying feet, the echo of careless voices vaguely heard, a...

Often she wondered afterwards how long that sleep would have lasted, if it had been left to Nature to awake her. It was so deep, so dreamless, so exquisite in its utter restfuln...

Four people sat at the old oak table in the oak-raftered dining-room of the Bishop’s palace that day, and no greater contrast than they presented could well have existed among b...

It came back to her slowly, with intervals of pain and weariness, when she felt as if she were making no progress at all, but it returned, and her indefatigable nurses gradually...

They stood up all around, forming a great amphitheatre—the great, grey stones that had weathered so many centuries. Stark and grim, sentinels of the ages, they stood in their ch...

The doctor—whose name was Square—was a bluff old countryman who was accustomed to ride miles over the moor every day on his old white mare, Jessie, in pursuit of his calling. A...

Well as she knew the way to the Stones from the farm, she had never trodden it save on that one occasion in the fog when Ruth had been her guide. They were approached by a steep...

The kitchen-door was half-open. She pushed it open and entered. Then sharply she drew back. It was raining and the place was in semi-darkness. Only a red glow from the great ope...

The voice sank to a lower whisper as in the old days behind the screen, and Frances, seated in a low chair beside the bed, tried not to strain her ears to listen. She wished the...

It was like a dream—yet not a dream. Over and over again she marvelled afresh at the wonder of it, lying on the hard little bed in her room with the sloping roof, watching the m...

The description that Frances had given of the lodging she had found for herself in that little Devon village on the edge of the moors gave a very fair impression of the hospital...

She had it in her hand at last—that letter which had caused her so much doubt and anxiety. She sat there holding it after the closing of the door, wondering, puzzled, troubled....

“If I can be of the slightest use here of course I will stay,” Frances answered, “for a time at least. But I can’t live on your kindness any longer. That is absolutely certain....

“I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us,” said Maggie. “And I’m very sorry you’re going.” She spoke with great earnestness but the lilt had come back to her voice and the lig...

Of that wild rush through the night Frances never recalled any very clear detail afterwards. She only knew a strange dazzle of moonlight that filled the world, making all things...

Was it a dream—a nightmare of her fevered brain? Was she back again in the tortures of her long illness, with Lucy and Nell whispering behind the screen, wondering how soon the...

The old man had reached them. He stood, leaning on a knotted stick, looking at her. Again she marvelled, for it was the face of a scholar—a dreamer—that she beheld. It had the g...

He came very slowly, with priest-like dignity, yet in his deliberation of movement there was purpose. It was seldom that the Bishop of Burminster performed any action without a...

Someone was saying the words. Frances opened her eyes upon blank darkness, and knew that her own lips had uttered them. She was lying in some sort of shelter, though how she had...

The thing was done. Frances stood alone in the old ivy-covered porch looking out into the faint starlight and asked herself how she had come to do it. It had been the impulse of...

She had never before so fully realized the grim, uncompromising strength of the man as at that moment. The day before he had lifted and borne her as though she had been a child....

I.— THE VICTIM II.— THE BARGAIN III.— THE TURN OF THE TIDE IV.— RUTH V.— THE EXILE VI.— THE CHAIN VII.— THE MESSAGE VIII.— THE MIRACLE IX.— THE INVALID X.— THE WOMAN’S RIGHT XI....

I.— THE STRANGERS II.— ROGER’S MASTER III.— THE BEAST IV.— REBELS V.— MR. DERMOT VI.— MAGGIE VII.— THE PATH THROUGH THE WILDERNESS VIII.— THE STONES IX.— THE LETTER X.— REVELATI...

I.— THE LAND OF EXILE II.— THE NIGHTMARE III.— THE AWAKENING IV.— THE VICTORY V.— THE VISION VI.— THE INQUISITOR VII.— FAIR PLAY VIII.— THE PLACE OF SACRIFICE IX.— WHERE THE GIA...

I.— THE MACHINE II.— THE BREAKDOWN III.— A BUSINESS PROPOSITION IV.— THE ACCUSER V.— THE HOLIDAY VI.— THE CAPTURE VII.— ROGER VIII.— THE ROAD TO NOWHERE IX.— THE LIONS’ DEN