The Countess Fanny

With her own hand, and an air of ceremony, the lady unlocked her jewel-case, took out the _parure_, and placed it on her large, dark dressing-table. She had not for some time lo...

“Oliver always calls her the Countess Fanny,” interrupted Ambrosia. “I suppose he has got into that way, and we must follow it. She is, too, you know, a contessa--or contessina;...

Ambrosia observed, and with an instant accentuation of her despondency, that Oliver was in no amiable mood. He greeted her with cold affection, and Mr. Spragge with forced court...

The dinner was perfectly arranged--Ambrosia had seen to that; there was no fault in any detail. The room looked rich and handsome in the light of the brilliant candles. Ambrosia...

Ambrosia rode to Lefton Park through a land wind that drove the dense, grey clouds seawards. In the pauses of this wind a fine drizzle of rain fell, and there was no colour in a...

When Ambrosia returned to Sellar’s Mead, she found the Countess Fanny in the drawing-room with her harp; she seemed very fond of this most old-fashioned accomplishment, which Am...

The Countess Fanny had returned, considerably fatigued, from her long ride. Oliver had gone to the stables, and Ambrosia was occupied with some domestic affairs. The Italian gir...

The year darkened down to implacable gloom and rising storm; day after day of sombre weather set in. The winds, menacing during the day, rose to gales during the night.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that it will be, after all, too dark to see anything, and we had best be turning towards Sellar’s Mead, lest we be benighted on the road.”

The next morning the Countess Fanny did not appear at the breakfast-table, and Ambrosia guessed that there had been a scene between her and Oliver the night before; but, as she...

Ambrosia was almost incredulous of the extreme vexation that this attitude on the part of Fanny promised. To have been only ten days in the house, and to have already arrived at...

Lucius Foxe had been at the lighthouse for two days. He rejoiced in being in this manner cut off, as it were, from the land, and almost, as it seemed to him, in the midst of the...

Lucius and the Countess Fanny rode back side by side across the sombre landscape. The engineers had taken the shorter way to Lefton Park. They were alone on the desolate road, w...

The manservant stepped aside, though not without a murmur, earnest, though whispered, of warning; and the Countess Fanny proceeded through the windy dusk up to the blank façade...

Ambrosia could not sleep that night, because of the gale flying past her window; for the tempest had broken with fierce violence, and, after a day that had been of a grey stilln...

Mrs. Trefusis, the housekeeper at Lefton Park, looked with dismay and hostility at the figure standing in the portico, blown upon and ruffled by the continuous stormy wind. It w...

It was another quarter of an hour before Lucius could get his horse out, mount, and ride across the park; and in that ride there was no sign of the Countess Fanny. Not the dista...

The storm had darkened down earth, ocean, and sky to one lurid yet colourless gloom; the wind was incessant, a north-easterly gale, continuous day and night, rattling and poundi...

“This must not go on any longer,” said the old man absently, yet with unconscious love fingering the boxes with his frail treasures. “Her other guardian, her uncle, should be in...

“Amy is very distressed,” remarked the old Earl, looking anxiously at his son. “All this is very difficult and terrible for her, Lucius; you must not forget that. In your search...

“You see,” said Ambrosia hurriedly, “to what I am exposed; I come from Lefton Park, and there I find Lucius abroad, searching for Fanny, and I return home, and Oliver is abroad,...

“You’ll agree, then, that she’s not dead,” Oliver had asked anxiously. “You’re willing to believe that she’s alive, hidden somewhere, and to come with me to search for her at Fl...

Mr. Spragge felt himself engulfed in horror. Never, till that moment, had he known what real terror was. All his previous convictions as to the end of the Countess Fanny were bl...

She had been about to make some passionate reply when Mr. Spragge had touched her hand and given her an imploring look that seemed to say “You deal with a man whose mind is brok...

When the two sullen and ill-assorted companions, who had preserved a cold silence during their journey, reached the little creek where were a few fishers’ huts and houses by the...

Long after the fishers had retired into their houses and shuttered their windows against the cold, Oliver Sellar remained on the beach, staring through the dark, twilit air at t...

About four days before Christmas the storm returned, and the cloudy damp, the sullen fog, the biting frost, the lowering skies, and the desultory falls of snow gave place to a r...

When the dark morning dawned at last the inhabitants of St. Nite’s parish could discover nothing of the meaning of the rocket of the night before; and as the days went on they g...

With every hour the violence and power of the sea abated and though there remained a fury of foaming waves across the channel of the Leopard’s Rock, the outer sea dropped from h...

The storm blew again continuously for three days, and Amy made no attempt to go over to Lefton Park. She remained in Sellar’s Mead and nursed Oliver--or rather watched by Oliver...

“Why have you come back like this to spy on me?” demanded the young Earl. “What do you mean? You had better explain yourself. You’ve had an ill look the whole day, though this w...

The spring had come, but it was not the spring of her dreams; she wondered, without bitterness, if anyone ever had seen the spring-time of their dreams. It was a chill, light, s...

“Every step,” said Oliver. “You did not perceive me, did you, in the shrubbery when you passed? You were so bemused that you never thought there was anyone behind you!”