The Clean Heart

Come back with Mr. Wriford a little. Come back with him a little to scenes where often his mind, not wanders, but hunts--hunts desperately, as hunts for safety, running in panic...

Lights in all the windows and in the street lamps as Mr. Wriford regained the town. Night approaching--and he terrified of its approach. Little chill was in the air, yet as he w...

"You're never going to keep it till the very last minute?" Essie had said. Mr. Wriford's plan rested for its actual execution upon this very fact of keeping it till the very las...

He had determined, writhing in those tortures of that night, at daybreak to get out of it. He had promised himself, striving to subdue his mental torments, that early morning, t...

Let Essie decide! That is the decision to which he comes, with which he stills his scruples. He desires her. The more he reflects upon possession of her--his to amuse him, to ru...

The front door of the farmhouse, embowered in a porch, was found to be on the side further from the strawyard. A fine knocker, very massive, hung upon the door, and this Mr. Pud...

In a very little while Mr. Puddlebox had dragged Mr. Wriford the three paces that gave them the mouth of the cave and had sat him upright there, his back against the cliff. Mr....

Mr. Wriford had caught at her hands. For a brief moment, as one in great agony almost swoons in ecstasy of relief at sudden cessation of the pain, he had felt his brain swing, t...

It is Essie who helps Mr. Wriford carry forward the advantage that Master Cupper has gained him. Mr. Pennyquick did not show himself throughout the remainder of the day. The exp...

Walks with Essie are frequent now; and in the house talk with Essie at all odd moments that bring them together. Jolly little Essie! Mr. Wriford finds himself often thinking of...

Mr. Puddlebox's landsman's eye showed him no signs of that "blowing up dirty" of which he had been informed. A fresh breeze faced him as he walked and somewhat hindered his prog...

Where, in the bright days, Mr. Puddlebox had taken the lead and suggested their road and programme, now, in the sombre days, chill in the air, and in the wind a bluster, Mr. Wri...

"My name is Puddlebox," said Mr. Puddlebox. He settled his back comfortably against the hedge and looked with a very bright eye at Mr. Wriford, who sat bowed before him and who...

The morrow finds eager pupils awaiting Mr. Wriford, and eager work and eager play, and again in the evening he is returning to the plumber's shop occupied with the plans for the...

It was in early May that Mr. Wriford cast himself into the river. Declining Summer, sullied in her raiment by September's hand, slain by October's, found him still in Mr. Puddle...

In the place where Mr. Wriford next found himself he first heard the reverberant thunder of the sea. He realised with sudden terror that he was not holding on; and as one starti...

Not to know--in no way to be prevailed upon in this his return to life by knowledge of whether she lives or has died. In no way to be strengthened--but of himself to live--if li...

This was a large, fat, kindly and protective hand in whose comfort Mr. Wriford slept, beneath which he awoke, and whose aid he was often to enjoy in immediate days to come. Yet...

There comes that day when Mr. Wriford went to Brida in desperate search of some one who should understand him and give him peace. It is a week after Dick has been shipped to joi...

Most dreadful pains of distressed breathing, of bursting heart and of throbbing head, afflicted Mr. Wriford as he ran. He laboured on despite them. He forgot, too, that he had s...

That simile of Mr. Wriford's condition in these days to one who, rearranging the furniture of his room, stares in constant bafflement at a bare corner and can by no means determ...

Look where she lies. Never to wake? Unconscious, and only, under God, to wake to die? Surely she but reposes, smiling, smiling there? Look where her face, surrounded by her hair...

They carry her to her room. There is only one doctor in Whitecliffe. He is found and fetched; and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bickers by the bedside, comes down to the sitting-room whe...

Sandwiches, supplied in liberal manner by Mr. Master and not touched on the railway journey, sufficed Mr. Wriford's needs through the following day. He tramped aimlessly the gre...

These occupied Mr. Wriford's thoughts. First of that sacrifice made for him when, without hint of it, without so much as good-bye, Mr. Puddlebox had swung off his hands from the...

"You're up there, ain't yer?" demanded the wagoner, arrived at the other side of the wagon and bawling from the road. "You're up there, aren't yer? I've got you, my beauty! I'll...

In this company, and with this highly appropriate beginning of legs dangling carelessly above the dusty highroad from a stolen seat on the tail-board of a wagon, there began to...

The event that at last aroused Mr. Wriford and took him far from Pendra was supplied by the oldest sea-captain living on that distinguished personage's birthday. The oldest sea-...

It is by a very surprising and extraordinary event that, from the abyss of wretchedness, irresolution and humiliation of the trial week at Tower House School, Mr. Wriford finds...

Stronger now. He was left very much alone by the other inmates of the convalescent ward, and that was what he wished. Strange folk themselves, some with odd ways, some with ugly...

Who is so vile a coward that one weaker than himself, in worse distress, shall not arrest his cowardice? Who that has given love so lost in fear as not to love anew, amain, when...

This was a somewhat tattered gentleman, very tall, seated comfortably against the hedge, long legs stretched before him, one terminating in a brown boot of good shape, the other...

It was symptomatic of Mr. Wriford's state in these days that any interruption at once diverted him from his immediate purpose and turned him eagerly to whatever new excitement o...

Close of this day found the two in the outlying barn of a farm to which, as night fell, Mr. Puddlebox had led the way. There had intervened between it and the glorious battle-fi...

This was in the little sitting-room of the Whitecliffe Sands lodgings--the fifth morning there; Mr. Bickers expected on the morrow; Mr. Wriford, as had been arranged when he was...

Guardians sat at a long, green-covered table. Large plates of sandwiches and large cups of coffee were supporting them against the strain of their labours in sitting late, and t...

Symptomatic again of Mr. Wriford's condition that his storm was gone as quickly as it came. Now filled him only the adventure of breaking out; and he was no sooner, with much la...

This was a sergeant of police, short, red, hot, neckless, filled with a seeming excess of bile, or of self-importance, which he must needs correct or affirm--according as it was...

There is to be added here, as bringing Mr. Wriford to this exclamation, that at midday the chauffeur, having whirled through rural England at great speed for some hours on end,...

I. Intentions, Before having his hair cut, of a Wagoner II. Passionate Attachment to Liver of a Wagoner III. Disturbed Equipoise of a Counterbalancing Machine IV. First Person S...

I. In a Field II. In a Parlour III. Trial of Mr. Wriford IV. Martyrdom of Master Cupper V. Essie's Idea of It VI. The Vacant Corner VII. Essie VIII. Our Essie IX. Not to Deceive...