The Honour of the Clintons

The June sunshine, beating through the dusty windows of the Police Court, fell upon a very different assembly from that which was usually to be found in that place of mean omen.

The Squire shut to the gate in the garden wall of the Dower House and stepped out across the park. His face was lit up with gratification, his step was as light as that of an el...

Virginia among her flowers, in the sweet, old-fashioned retired garden of the Dower House was a sight to refresh the eyes. She was gathering a sheaf of long-stalked May-flowerin...

Joan was so far fortified by her conversation with her father that she was quite prepared to play her part in entertaining Bobby Trench when he exchanged the sofa in his bedroom...

The rumours grew, and spread everywhere. The story was discussed in all the clubs, in all the drawing-rooms, in every country house. Allusions, carefully calculated to escape th...

Lord Sedbergh beamed upon Joan affectionately. He was a stoutish, elderly man, with a large, clean-shaven face, not unhandsome, and noticeably kind, and a bald head fringed with...

The Squire had slept late. Mrs. Clinton had stood by his bed when the breakfast gong had sounded, and looked down upon his face, older without a doubt than it had been a month b...

The lilacs in the station-yard at Kencote were heavy with their trusses of white and purple; the rich pastures that stretched away on either side of the line were yellow with bu...

How could such an announcement, to the Squire reading it in the obituary column of his paper, cause any emotion stronger than the feeling that all was for the best?

Joan, more or less recovered from her indisposition, still looked upon the world as a place from which all happiness had for ever fled. She mooned about the house doing nothing,...

From the walls looked down portraits of Clintons dead and gone, and of the horses and dogs that they had loved, as well as some pictures that by-gone owners of Kencote had broug...

Bobby Trench, lying in bed, the seams of his pyjama jacket cut and ribboned at the left arm and shoulder to accommodate the bandages, was an interesting figure. He had gone thro...

Frank and Nancy were on the platform at Kencote. The Squire, longing for his home whenever he was away from it, like any schoolboy detached from the dear familiar, was pleased t...

The lilacs in the station-yard at Kencote were blossoming again. Again the train crawled over the sun-dappled meadows, and Joan was on the platform to meet it. This time it was...

Humphrey laughed. "My dear chap," he said, "I would, like a shot; but, to be perfectly honest with you, you haven't succeeded in commending yourself to the Governor, and, after...

She dried her eyes, but still kept her head on Virginia's knee, and put up her hand to give Virginia's a little squeeze. It was comforting to be with her, looking into the fire.

I have to thank you for your second letter, and for your cheque for £7,000, which I cannot now refuse, but which, upon my soul, I don't know what to do with. If I buy another ne...

If Bobby Trench really felt the pleasure he had expressed at the prospect of seeing Mr. Clinton again, it was a sensation not shared by the Squire, when his motor-car came swish...

Humphrey and Susan arrived at Kencote on a waft of good fortune. A widowed aunt of Susan's, a lady of unaccountable actions, from whom it had never been safe to expect anything,...

Dick was standing in his pyjamas at the window of Virginia's bedroom. They were in a country house on the Yorkshire coast, to which they had come for a few days on their way fro...

The Squire went home in the afternoon. When he reached the junction at Ganton, where trains were changed for Kencote, he walked across the platform to send a telegram. The stati...

The Squire rang his bell violently, with a loud exclamation of impatience. It was a handbell, on a table by the side of his easy chair, in front of which was a baize-covered res...

He did not understand in the least, and looked his puzzlement--and his disgust of her. She dropped her eyes, and her seductive manner at the same time. "Come and sit down again,...

We began with the train, and will end with the train. It was the material link by which Kencote, standing as it had done through so many centuries remote and aside from the turm...

"Mr. Clinton has had to go to Bathgate, ma'am. He told me to say he would dine at the club and might be late home. He partic'ly asked that you and Miss Joan--Miss Clinton--shoul...

John Spence fitted two walnuts together in the palms of his big hands and cracked them with a sudden tightening of the muscles. His good-humoured ruddy face was solicitous. "I t...

Bobby Trench, muffled up to the cigar he was smoking, sat by the side of Dick, who was driving the big omnibus back from the West Meadshire Hunt Ball. The two fine horses, makin...

The Squire leant back in the big easy-chair and wiped his brow, which was beaded with perspiration. He had told his story, and it had been the bitterest task he had ever underta...

was furious. I thought it was blackmail, as you did. I threatened to have her up. That scandalised her, and she convinced me that she was telling the truth. She told me to go an...

I Bobby Trench Is Asked to Kencote II Joan and Nancy III Humphrey and Susan IV Coming Home from the Ball V Robert Recumbent VI Joan Rebellious VII Disappointments VIII Proposals

I A Return II Payment III The Straight Path IV A Conclave V Waiting VI The Power of the Storm VII Thinking It Out VIII Skies Clearing IX Skies Clear