The Golden Web

The solicitor hung up his silk hat, motioned his two visitors to seats, and took his accustomed place in front of his writing-table. "I am afraid," he said, turning toward Mr. S...

Twenty-four hours later, Deane walked upon a wilderness of marshy sands, glittering here and there with the stain of the sea, blue in places with the delicate flush of sea laven...

There was one person in London who knew Deane's whereabouts, and from him there came no word. To Deane himself there seemed something unreal about the long hours which he spent...

"I asked you to lunch at the club, Deane," said Lord Nunneley, "because I thought that we could talk here without being interrupted. If you came to Cavendish Square, Olive would...

Miss Rowan had left two hours ago, and had taken all her luggage and paid her bill. Apparently she had no idea of returning,--at any rate, she had not reserved any rooms. The ha...

The girl was sitting in the middle of a hard horsehair sofa, her elbows upon her knees, her head resting in her hands. She looked across the dreary apartment and out of the ill-...

The clerk who brought in the little slip of paper was both timid and apologetic. He felt himself between two fires. The young lady outside had been a little more than insistent....

It was three o'clock in the morning when Deane softly opened the door of his bedroom in the Hotel Universal, and looked up and down the side corridor. There was no one in sight,...

Deane found a singular interest, an interest which amounted almost to fascination, in watching the demeanor and general deportment of his companion. Her adaptability was little...

After all, the element of unconventionality was absent from Deane's tea-party. About four o'clock, looking landwards from a little sandy knoll just in front of his strange abode...

Morning dawned upon a land still as though from exhaustion. The long waves, sole remnant of the storm, came gliding in with a slow, lazy motion, and broke noiselessly upon the f...

"You see, Deane," he said, "after all, it depends very much upon this alleged document. The whole case practically hinges upon it. If the defendants are unable to procure it, or...

The door had barely closed upon his visitor when Deane was back once more in the throes of business, answering questions, giving quotations, receiving offers. The telephone was...

Deane sat at his desk, immersed once more in the affairs of his great business. His cheeks were bronzed with the sun and heather-scented wind. His eyes were clear and bright. Al...

Deane was shown into what was apparently the morning-room of the Sarsby domicile by an open-mouthed and very country-looking domestic, who regarded him all the time with unaffec...

With his feet to the sea, and his head pillowed by many cushions, Rowan lay in a long invalid chair at the edge of the little strip of shingle which separated the tower of Rakne...

"I do not usually interfere with the comings and goings of my lodgers," she said. "They pay for their rooms. That is all I ask. You see the door opposite you?"

The contrast in personal appearance between the two men, having regard to their relative positions, was a significant thing. The caller, who had just been summoned from the wait...

From the pit of the world--from the Law Courts, hot and crowded, where the atmosphere was heavy with strife,--the modern battleground, where the fighting was at least as dramati...

Deane stood at last on the other side of those long, dragging months of unspeakable weariness. Day after day, in the close atmosphere of the Courts, week after week of what seem...

"That's all right," said the man. "The only thing was that as I was one of the people you came to, to ask about Deane, I felt that if it was still on I ought to tell you that th...

Deane, with the air of one who was an _habitue_ to the house, found his way to the drawing-room, where Lady Olive was seated before the piano, playing softly. She rose as he ent...

Deane remembered afterwards, with a painful exactness, every step which he took in his stockinged feet down the dimly-lit corridor. Only one of the electric lights had been left...

The young man got up at once and left the room, followed by the typist. Deane waited until the door was closed. Then he turned once more to his visitor.

Ruby Sinclair leaned forward and touched her companion's back as they flew through the village of Rakney. "Look," said she. "You see that cottage we are just passing? That is wh...

She came to him in a few moments, dressed in a fascinating negligee gown,--came to him with a rustle of silk and a faint expression of surprise upon her upraised eyebrows.

Deane was never quite sure how it had happened. The sudden crash of the storm, the vivid play of the lightning in the darkened room, the curious exultation which any outburst of...

Southward, through the country lanes whose hedges were still wreathed with late honeysuckle, on to the great mainroad, Deane's car was driven through the night,--always southwar...

Hefferom was over sanguine. It was three days before he was able to see Stirling Deane. During that three days he had lived on a few shillings, spent mostly in drinks. He swagge...

Rowan sat still in his corner, and although the hotel could not be called fashionable--perhaps, in these later days, scarcely luxurious--the little ebb and flow of life upon whi...

At about quarter past ten in the morning, a man, still young, but deathly pale, with hollow cheeks and receding eyes, stood on the edge of the pavement outside a great and gloom...

Lady Olive looked reproachfully at him. "My dear Stirling, you really shouldn't have told us at luncheon time. If I hadn't been so very hungry, I am sure it would have taken my...

A morning paper, apparently in lack of a new sensation, suddenly took up the cause of Basil Rowan. An evening paper, conducted under the same auspices, promptly followed suit. T...

The curtain had fallen upon the first act of this little drama in Deane's life. Hefferom was committed for trial. Deane had walked into the court a few minutes late, as though t...

A few hours later, Stirling Deane sat at a small round dining-table, side by side with the father of the girl to whom he had been engaged for exactly three days. His hostess, th...

A little stream of people came suddenly out from the dark, forbidding-looking building into the sun-lit street. The tragedy was over, and one by one they took their several ways...

"I am so sorry," he answered, taking the vacant chair by her side. "I came away from the office feeling that I had forgotten something, and it took me quite a long time to strai...

Mr. Sarsby, like most men of his stamp, when brought in touch with larger things than his world knew of, was nervous and helpless. He seemed to throw the whole weight of further...

John Hardaway, although he was a solicitor in a very busy practice, did not keep his friend waiting for a moment. "Come in, Deane, old chap," he said. "Is this business or frien...

Deane nodded. It was, after all, perhaps the most sensible thing she could do to get clear away! "Send me my tea at eight o'clock," he ordered, "and let me have a bath at once."

Winifred came slowly into the room. It seemed to Deane, watching her curiously, that she had been steeling herself to defiance. There was no change in her expression, and her li...

Even after the door had closed upon Lord Nunneley, and Deane was alone with his fiancee, words did not seem to come easily to either of them. Lady Olive was sitting back in the...