The Keeper of the Door

She made a face at him, and gave the hammock a vicious twitch which caused him to rock with some violence for several seconds. As he was wont pathetically to remark, everyone bu...

Violet Campion reined in her horse with a suddenness that made him chafe indignantly, and leaned from the saddle to greet Olga, who had just turned in at the Priory gates.

Redlands had always been a bower of delight to Olga's vivid fancy. The house, long, low, and rambling, stood well back from the cliffs in the midst of a garden which to her chil...

To return to the Priory with her _bête-noir_ seated in triumph beside her was a trick of fortune that Olga had been very far from anticipating. There was no help for it, however...

"It's very kind of Olga to provide us with distractions," said Nick, as he dropped into an arm-chair, with a cigar, "but I almost think we are better off without them. If I see...

"I am going over to Brethaven to see Mrs. Briggs to-day," Olga announced nearly a week later, waylaying Max after breakfast on his way to the surgery with the air of one prepare...

The visit to the Priory occupied some time, as Olga had foreseen. There were some things that Violet wanted to fetch from her own room and this entailed a search, for her posses...

Major Hunt-Goring was quite obviously in his element. To Olga's dismay he showed no disposition to depart when they rose from the luncheon-table. Violet suggested a move to the...

"Best we can do under the circumstances," said Max. "The kids are still paper-chasing, and Miss Campion, overcome by the heat, has retired to bed. I propose to follow her exampl...

When remembrance of the previous day's happenings came to Olga, she was already so deeply engrossed in household duties that she was able to dismiss the matter without much diff...

Could it be true? Sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking, all through the night Olga asked herself the question; and when morning came she was still unconvinced. Nothing in Ma...

"As I am? Oh, no, not quite, believe me. I always pride myself I am unique in that respect. Now you mustn't talk," said Nick judiciously, "or you will spoil my inspiration. Who'...

"How extraordinary men are!" Violet stretched her arms high above her head and let them fall. Her eyes were turned contemplatively towards the sinking sun. "This man for instanc...

He had not made love to her! That was the thought uppermost in Olga's mind when the wild tumult of her spirit gradually subsided. He had not so much as touched upon his own feel...

Olga slept late on the following morning, awaking at length with a wild sense of dismay at having done so. She leaped up as the vivid memory of the night's happenings rushed upo...

The rest of that day was passed in so ordinary a fashion that Olga found herself wondering now and then if she could by any chance have dreamed the events of the night.

"It's a damnable position," said Max. He stared across the white table-cloth with eyes that brooded under down-drawn brows. "I don't anticipate any sudden development if I can k...

Had Olga been a little less engrossed with the all-absorbing prospect that had just opened before her, she might have regarded as somewhat unusual the fact that Violet made no f...

It was certainly a perfect day for a cruise. The sea lay blue and still as a lake, so clear that the rocks made purple shadows in its crystal depths. Under any other circumstanc...

The library at Redlands overlooked a wide lawn that led through shrubberies to the edge of the cliff, up the face of which had been cut a winding path. He paused a moment consid...

Violet raised herself from her pillows, turning a haggard face to meet her friend. She looked as if years had passed over her. Her great eyes shone out of dark circles. They loo...

Violet, with the great dog Cork vigilant and silent beside her, sat before it as one wrapt in reverie. Now and then she roused herself to answer at random some remark from Nick,...

So cool was his utterance, so perfectly free from agitation his demeanour, that Olga wondered if she could have heard aright. Then she saw him go to the table and prepare to rem...

The utterance was very faint, yet it reached Olga, sitting, as she had sat for hours, by her friend's side, watching the long, still slumber that had followed Max's draught.

That darkness was to Olga but the beginning of a long, long night of suffering--such suffering as her short life had never before compassed--such suffering as she had never imag...

She sat down on his knee, and slipped a kindly arm round his neck. "I hope you won't be dead, Noel," she said, in the careful tone of one not wishing to be taken too seriously.

When Noel Wyndham entered Mrs. Musgrave's drawing-room that night, he was wearing his most alluring smile. He was evidently prepared to charm and be charmed; and his host, who p...

Though within sound of the native city, their bungalow stood well outside. It was surrounded by a compound of many tangled shrubs that gave it the appearance of being more isola...

Without Noel she would have found that State dinner as dreary as it was pompous. The Rajah was occupied with discussing the laws of British sport with Colonel Bradlaw who regard...

It was a very thoughtful face that met Nick at the breakfast table on the following morning. But Nick's greeting was as airy as usual. He made no comments and asked no questions.

She was roused by Nick scratching seductively at her window from the verandah, and, admitting him, she found him waiting to present a jeweller's box which contained a string of...

When Nick heard of the mistake that had been made, he raised his eyebrows till he could raise them no further and then laughed, laughed immoderately till Olga was secretly a lit...

The way was exceedingly rough and here and there almost overgrown with coarse weeds. Near the temple, the ground ascended fairly steeply, and the path narrowed so that it was im...

In after-days when Olga looked back upon the rest of that Christmas picnic, she could remember very little in detail of what took place. Her mind was so fully occupied with the...

Noel dined with the Musgraves that night. His mood was hilarious throughout, but he seemed for some reason unwilling to discuss the adventure he had shared with Olga in the temp...

All the social circle of Sharapura and most of the native population usually assembled on the polo-ground to witness the great annual match between the Rajah's team and the offi...

It was universally acknowledged that the Rajah's Prime Minister, Kobad Shikan, was the most magnificent figure on the polo-ground that afternoon. The splendour of his attire was...

The evening was marked for ever in Olga's calendar as the merriest of her life. She was positively giddy with happiness, and she danced as she had never danced before. No one de...

"It always used to be regarded as anything but a model State," smiled Major Hunt-Goring, as he lay in a long chair and watched Daisy's busy fingers at work on a frock for Peggy....

Certainly Major Hunt-Goring was the last person Olga expected to meet at the Musgraves' dinner-party that night, and so astounded was she for the moment at the sight of him that...

They stood in the dining-room which they had entered on arrival. Max had lounged across to the mantelpiece, and propped himself against it in his favourite attitude. He looked o...

"Thanks!" said Max. He took his pipe from his pocket and commenced to fill it with extreme care. There was something grimly ironical about his whole bearing. He did not speak ag...

He had made the remark several times before that morning, but he made it with special emphasis on this occasion in response to the news that his brother was waiting to see him.

It was not the same Olga who went back into the busy little Anglo-Indian community at Sharapura after the breaking of her engagement, though it was only those intimate with her...

It so chanced that Noel did not find himself in any intimate conversation with Olga again until the great week arrived, and General Sir Reginald Bassett came upon the scene with...

Looking back in after days, the time that elapsed between the coming of Sir Reginald Bassett and the night of the Fancy-Dress Ball at the mess-house was to Olga as a whirling ni...

"I say, you're magnificent!" said Noel. His hand closed tightly upon Olga's with the words. He looked her up and down with a free admiration too boyish to be offensive. "You're...

The failure of Nick to appear for the supper-dances diverted her thoughts from this but to send them with ever-growing anxiety into a new channel. Where was Nick? What was happe...

He came to himself abruptly, in utter darkness, with the horror of it still strong within his soul. His head was swathed in bandages. He turned it to and fro with restless jerks.

He came to Sir Kersley, seated at his writing-table, and paused beside him. It was a day in April, showery, shot with fleeting gleams of sunshine that sent long golden shafts ac...

Dr. Jim's expectations, so far as Olga was concerned, were fulfilled. When he went back to Weir, she remained in town with Nick and Muriel. But he did not go back alone. Will, D...

He sat on the sofa in Daisy's little drawing-room with his small playfellow on his knee. They had not seen each other for six weeks. And in those weeks Noel had been transformed...

When Nick returned to Redlands, he was alone. Olga had gone down again to the shore. She wanted to be by herself a little longer, she said. He didn't mind? No, Nick minded nothi...

That letter to Max was perhaps the hardest task that Olga had ever undertaken. She spent the greater part of three hours over it, oblivious of everything else; and then, close u...

"No," said Daisy, with decision. "I shall never like Dr. Wyndham, though I am quite willing to admit that he may be admirable in many ways. He is not my ideal of a nice husband,...