Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy

The Inheritors

We went through the old gateway and I cast a glance over my shoulder. The noon sun was shining over the masonry, over the little saints' effigies, over the little fretted canopies, the grime and the white streaks of bird-dropping.

Chapters

1. Chapter 1

We went through the old gateway and I cast a glance over my shoulder. The noon sun was shining over the masonry, over the little saints' effigies, over the little fretted canopi...

2. Chapter 2

Her figure faded into the darkness, as pale things waver down into deep water, and as soon as she disappeared my sense of humour returned. The episode appeared more clearly, as...

3. Chapter 3

To encourage me, I suppose, Callan gave me the proof-sheets of his next to read in bed. The thing was so bad that it nearly sickened me of him and his jobs. I tried to read the...

4. Chapter 4

I went up to town bearing the Callan article, and a letter of warm commendation from Callan to Fox. I had been very docile; had accepted emendations; had lavished praise, had be...

5. Chapter 5

He might really be backing a foreign, philanthropic ruler and State-founder, and a British Foreign Minister, against the rather sinister Chancellor of the Exchequer that Mr. Gur...

6. Chapter 6

I had gone out into the blackness of the night with a firmer step, with a new assurance. I had had my interview, the thing was definitely settled; the first thing in my life tha...

7. Chapter 7

It was Saturday and, as was his custom during the session, the Foreign Secretary had gone for privacy and rest till Monday to a small country house he had within easy reach of t...

8. Chapter 8

I succeeded in giving Fox what his journal wanted; I got the atmosphere of Churchill and his house, in a way that satisfied the people for whom it was meant. His house was a ple...

9. Chapter 9

After that I began to live, as one lives; and for forty-nine weeks. I know it was forty-nine, because I got fifty-two atmospheres in all; Callan's and Churchill's, and those for...

10. Chapter 10

I had a pretty bad night after that, and was not much in the mood for Fox on the morrow. The sight of her had dwarfed everything; the thought of her disgusted me with everything...

11. Chapter 11

Before noon of the next day I was ascending the stairs of the new house in which the Duc had his hermitage. There was an air of secrecy in the broad publicity of the carpeted st...

12. Chapter 12

I couldn't get to sleep that night, but lay and tossed, lit my candle and read, and so on, for ever and ever--for an eternity. I was confoundedly excited; there were a hundred t...

13. Chapter 13

I was at the Hôtel de Luynes--or Granger--early on the following morning. The mists were still hanging about the dismal upper windows of the inscrutable Faubourg; the toilet of...

14. Chapter 14

I had a sense of walking very fast--almost of taking flight--down a long dim corridor, and of a door that opened into an immense room. All that I remember of it, as I saw it the...

15. Chapter 15

That afternoon we had a scene, and late that night another. The memory of the former is a little blotted out. Things began to move so quickly that, try as I will to arrange thei...

16. Chapter 16

We parted in London next day, I hardly know where. She seemed so part of my being, was for me so little more than an intellectual force, so little of a physical personality, tha...

17. Chapter 17

We reached London somewhat late in the evening--in the twilight of a summer day. There was the hurry and bustle of arrival, a hurry and bustle that changed the tenor of my thoug...

18. Chapter 18

At noon of the next day I gave Fox his look in at his own flat. He was stretched upon a sofa--it was evident that I was to take such of his duties as were takeable. He greeted m...

19. Chapter 19

I walked along, got to my club and upstairs into my room peaceably. A feeling of entire tranquillity had come over me. I rested after a strife which had issued in a victory whos...

20. Chapter 20

I wanted to see her, to finish it one way or another, and, at my aunt's house, I found her standing in an immense white room; waiting for me. There was a profusion of light. It...