The Governors

Virginia, when she had torn herself away from the bosom of her sorrowing but excited family, and boarded the car which passed only once a day through the tiny village in Massach...

"Well," he said, smiling kindly at her over the bank of flowers which occupied the centre of the small round table at which they were dining, "what do you think of it all?"

Mr. Phineas Duge, since the death of his wife, had closed his doors to all his friends, and entertained only on rare occasions a few of the men with whom he was connected in his...

Phineas Duge, if his manners preserved still that sense of restraint which seemed part of the man himself, still made an excellent host. He sat at the head of his table, a disti...

Somewhat to Virginia's surprise, when at last she stepped with beating heart into the library, she found her uncle alone. He was sitting in front of his open desk, a pile of pap...

Virginia walked along Fifth Avenue, enjoying the sunshine, the crowds of people, and the effect of a new hat. Every now and then she stopped to look in a shop, and more than onc...

There were three men in New York that day, who, although they occupied their accustomed table, the best in one of its most exclusive clubs, and although their luncheon was chose...

In the middle of the night Virginia was awakened by the sound of a revolver shot. She put on her dressing-gown, and, with an electric torch in her hand, started to descend the s...

"I was very fortunate indeed to meet you," he said, "but I shall not think of letting you go until you have had some lunch. It is nearly one o'clock."

Stella walked briskly down Fifth Avenue and turned into Broadway. Here she took a car down town, and presented herself in the space of twenty minutes or so before the offices of...

Once more a little luncheon was in progress at the corner table in the millionaires' club. This time Littleson also was of the party. He had been describing his luncheon of the...

Virginia crossed the hall with rapid footsteps, and entered the library. She realized at once that she had not been deceived, but she started back in surprise when she discovere...

Early the next morning, Littleson's automobile dashed up to the door of Weiss' office. Without even waiting to be announced, its owner pushed his way through the clerk's office...

Littleson reached the hotel where Stella lived just in time to find the hall full of her trunks, and Stella herself, in dark travelling clothes and heavily veiled, in the act of...

Norris Vine shook hands with neither of the two men he greeted upon entering the room. Weiss, now that he felt that a crisis of some sort was at hand, recovered altogether from...

Weiss unlocked and threw open the office door, and a moment later returned with a tall, grey-headed man, with closely cropped beard and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. He shook hands wi...

He did not wait for her consent, but after all she was scarcely prepared to withhold it, for it was a very cold morning, and the young man who had been sitting on the next chair...

Littleson, before many hours of their voyage had passed, became conscious that Virginia was showing a slight but unmistakable desire to avoid his society. Being a Harvard gradua...

She glanced up at him, and the words which she had prepared died away on her lips. She led the way quite meekly to where their chairs remained side by side.

Conversation had begun to languish between the two men. Vine had answered all his host's inquiries about old friends and acquaintances on the other side, inquiries at first eage...

"It is absurd," she declared. "You have wanted money all your life, money and power. You have both now in your grasp. If you do not use them, I shall think--"

It was her third day in London, and Virginia was discouraged. Neither at the Embassy nor at his club had she been able to obtain any tidings of the man of whom she was in search...

"Forgive me," he said, leaning over the table towards her. "I ought to have asked you differently, I know, but I am so afraid that you will slip away, as you did before, and tha...

Virginia drew a little breath of relief. After all it had been very easy. She had simply walked into the flats, entered the lift, ascended to the fifth floor, opened the door of...

Norris Vine stood in the middle of his room, his hat still upon his head, and his overcoat on his arm. Before him stood the waiter and the watchman of the flats.

Phineas Duge, notwithstanding an absence of anything approaching vulgarity in his somewhat complex disposition, was, for a man of affairs and an American, singularly fond of the...

Virginia slept little that night. Her room, one of the smallest and least expensive in the cosmopolitan boarding-house where she was staying, was high up, almost in an attic. Th...

"I saw you dining at Luigi's yesterday and to-day," he answered sternly. "You were with the same man both times. I followed you yesterday. You both came back here. To-day you ca...

Guy led Virginia across the hall, knocked at a door and entered. A tall, grey-haired lady was sitting on a sofa with a tea-tray by her side. She was very good-looking, and absur...

It was between half-past four and five o'clock in the morning, and London for the most part slept. Down in the street below, the roar of traffic, which hour after hour had grown...

The morning papers were full of the news. Phineas Duge had landed in London! The Stock Exchange was fluttered. Those whose hands were upon the money-markets of the world paused...

"I scarcely understand, Mr. Duge," Vine said, "what you can possibly want with me. Our former relations have scarcely been of so pleasant a nature as to render a visit from you...

Norris Vine without a doubt was trapped. He realized it from the moment Phineas Duge closed the door and turned the key. The two men who had entered were to all appearance absol...

Mr. Deane was on the point of accompanying his wife for their usual afternoon's drive in the park. A glance at the card which was brought to him just as he was preparing to leav...

In a small, shabbily furnished room at the top of a tall apartment house, Virginia was living through what seemed to her, as indeed it was, a grim little tragedy. On the table b...

Very softly Virginia pushed open the door one, two, three inches. She could see Vine now sitting at the table with several sheets of paper before him, and a book which seemed to...

The American ambassador was giving the third of his great dinner-parties. At the last moment he had prevailed upon Phineas Duge to accept an invitation. Littleson, also, was of...

Norris Vine put on his coat, lit a cigarette, and looked around the room with the satisfied air of a man who has successfully accomplished a difficult task. In front of him were...

Phineas Duge in London was still a man of affairs. With a cigar in his mouth, and his hands behind his back, he was strolling about his handsomely furnished sitting-room at Clar...