The Devil's Garden

And the second and third hymns were just as bad, shaking him to pieces, tumbling him headlong into the terror he had felt when his crime was no more than a week old. The rest of...

"Why not? You said I might tell my secrets. I wasn't afraid. I thought 'Oh, aren't I glad I done what Mrs. Dale told me not to--and come into my wondersome, wondersome wood, and...

He thought: "Other men at fifty are often hale and hearty, chock-full of vigor. But that's not my case." He felt that, though his frame remained stout enough, he had exhausted h...

In the cupboard with the jam-pots, there were two or three boxes of cigars, the famous sloe gin, and other liqueurs, for the entertainment of such highly esteemed visitors; and...

Indeed she was delighted. She had been deeply moved by all he told her about his distaste for the work he used to love, and she recognized that he had been magnanimous in refrai...

"Look you here, young lady," she said, with increasing warmth. "I'm not going to stand any of your nonsense--and of that I give you fair warning. Now you just answer me in a see...

As soon as he got into the wood he hurried as rapidly as he could toward Kibworth Rocks; and then when he got near them he walked slowly up and down the ride, with his head bowe...

"Look here, my lass," said Mavis, unconsciously founding herself on the manner of her husband when administering rebuke, "if you can't obey what I tell you, I shall ask Mr. Dale...

As he questioned her and listened to her answers his passion took a rhythm, upward and downward, from blind wrath to black sorrow; and it seemed that the points reached by the r...

During the interval before the ballet he took her out of the circle, strolled with her up and down the promenade, and gave her an American drink in a refreshment saloon. It was...

What a hideous and damnable mockery! This was the monument of that good kind man, the late Mr. Barradine. Every red tile, every dab of white paint, every square inch of clean gr...

When the time came for Dale to be baptized Mr. Osborn offered to perform the ceremony at dawn in the stream that runs through Hadleigh Wood; but Dale refused the offer. He said...

Dale observed his manner of holding his hand to his forehead as if seeking inspiration, the almost spasmodic movements of his mouth, the sort of plaintive groan that started the...

The mistresses must have issued a sudden order of silence, for they all went by without so much as a whisper. There were fifty of them, but they seemed to be thousands. Dressed...

Presently he saw that the secretary was producing a fresh file of papers, and at the same moment, quite inexplicably, his attention wandered. He had brought out a handkerchief,...

And, encouraged to talk freely, Mrs. Goudie told Mavis and Dale, what indeed she had often told them before, of the shocking badness of Richard Bates and the ugly scenes that ha...

He did not, however, go on Friday. Dale kept the house under observation off and on all day, and again in the evening. Mr. Barradine went out driving twice; but the carriage bro...

"'Twas a failure. Sort of a gentleman farmer had the notion he knew better than others, and tried it on year after year till he made a laughing-stock of himself. Anyhow, that's...

His bag too--left by him at Waterloo for a solid proof that he was _not_ in London as he pretended. The bag was at the cloak-room all right when he came to fetch it, but perhaps...

"Oh, you're very clever, you Londoners. I don't doubt you can all see through a brick wall. Yes, I'm from the country--but I'm beginning to know my way about the town too. Ever...

And indeed little Mr. Ridgett was fully susceptible to Mavis' varied charms. He liked her complexion--so unusually white; he liked her hair--such a lot of it; he liked the mobil...

The storm had brought back the floods, and they were now worse than anything that anybody remembered having ever seen. The feeding sources of the Rod River had broken all bounds...

Little by little Mavis pieced the story together. Mr. Barradine had been out riding late yesterday, and the riderless horse had given the alarm some time about nine o'clock in t...

She sat crying most bitterly; and then, when at last she dried her eyes, and went down-stairs to gratify Mary by pretending to eat some breakfast, a supremely commonplace and ye...

Norah had hesitated about replying; but she now said that she really thought Dale need not be in a hurry. Billy was so clever that when he did get to school he would learn faste...

The Devil playeth in a man's mind like a wanton child in a garden, bringing his filth to choke each open path, uprooting the tender plants, and trampling the buds that should ha...

Mr. Druitt had been introduced by Mrs. Goudie as the higgler, or itinerant poulterer and greengrocer, who served the house in Mr. Bates' time. He was a thin middle-aged man, wit...

He noiselessly slipped from the bed, huddled on some clothes, washed his face in cold water at the kitchen sink, and let himself out of the house. The open air refreshed him alm...

The heat was tremendous, and as the men came staggering back they pushed him away. Then they clustered round him, each face like a fiery mask, and yelled to make themselves hear...