The Knave of Diamonds

During the weeks that followed, something of her former tranquillity came back to Anne. It was evident that Nap was determined to show himself worthy of her trust, for never by...

There was a cooing note in her deep voice. She sat in the Dower House garden with her grandson bolt upright upon her knees, and all the birds of June singing around her.

As the widowed rector's only daughter, Dot's occupations were many and various, and it was in consequence no difficult matter to be too deeply engrossed in these occupations to...

What impulse she obeyed she knew not; only she wanted to hear the nightingale, to drink in the fragrance, to feel the healing balm upon her heart. Her feet carried her noiseless...

An unwonted restlessness had taken possession of Anne. She did not echo his thanksgiving, an omission which he did not fail to note, but upon which he made no comment.

By what magic he cajoled her into trying her skill upon skis Anne never afterwards remembered. It seemed to her later that the exhilarating atmosphere of that cloudless winter d...

It was a very cheery Dot Waring who ran across the wet fields that afternoon to the Manor to acquaint Lady Carfax with the gratifying intelligence that the proceeds of the great...

Thus Lucas Errol, sitting on the terrace on a certain hot afternoon early in August, greeted Dot, whose multifarious duties did not permit her to be a very frequent visitor. He...

It was nearly a month after Lucas Errol's operation that Bertie and his bride came home from their honeymoon and began the congenial task of setting their house in order.

The gradual coming of spring that year was like a benediction after the prolonged rigour of the frost. The lengthening evenings were wrapped in pearly mystery, through which the...

The chosen corner certainly had the advantage of privacy. It was an alcove at the end of one of the long narrow passages in which the ancient hostelry abounded, and the only lig...

What had happened to her? Slowly, with a sensation of doubt that seemed to weigh her down, Anne rose to the surface of things, and looked once more upon the world that had rushe...

It was a week after the Hunt Ball that Anne Carfax, sitting alone at tea in her drawing-room before a blazing fire, was surprised by the sudden opening of the door, and the anno...

Nap was deftly drawing away the pillows to ease his position. "All right, old fellow," he made answer. "But you know you can't sit up when you are like this. What possessed you...

Slowly Anne drew aside the curtain and looked forth into the night, a magic night, soft and wonderful, infinitely peaceful. A full moon shone high in the sky with an immense arc...

And Anne, to whom the burden of life just then was more than ordinarily heavy, was fain to submit to the kindly tyranny. Mrs. Errol had found her alone at the inn at Bramhurst o...

Till the very last moment he lingered, and it was Lucas himself with his final "Go, Tawny!" who sent him from the room. They would not even let him wait, as Nap was waiting, til...

"Oh, dear, I wish it wasn't so muddy." Dot, emerging from old Squinny's cottage, stood a moment on the edge of the large puddle that was old Squinny's garden and gazed over the...

It was nearly two before they reached Bramhurst and drew up before the one ancient inn the place possessed. Upstairs, in a lattice-windowed room with sloping floor and bulging c...

Between the two men who were left not a word passed for many minutes. Nap prowled to and fro with his head back and his own peculiarly insolent smile curving the corners of his...

The moment Lucas Errol's hand closed upon hers it was to Anne as if an immense and suffocating weight had been lifted from her, and with it all her remaining strength crumbled a...

When she turned at length she had recovered all her customary serenity. With the quiet dignity peculiar to her, she passed up the garden path, leaving the thrush still singing,...

There came a sudden blare of music from the great ballroom below, and the woman who stood alone at an open window on the first floor shrugged her shoulders and shivered a little...

It was on a day of wild autumnal weather, when the wind moaned like a living thing in torture about the house, and the leaves eddied and drifted before the scudding rain, that t...

It was growing late that night when Lucas opened his eyes after a prolonged and fruitless attempt to sleep, and found Nap standing at the foot of the bed watching him. A lamp wa...

Spring came early that year, and the day fixed for the opening of the Baronford Town Hall was brilliantly fine and warm. Anne was staying at Baronmead for the event. The end of...

The brothers were standing together on the steps when Anne alighted from the car, and her first thought as she moved towards them was of their utter dissimilarity. They might ha...

No clamour of mourning broke the spell of silence that lay upon Baronmead. Those who wept hid their grief behind closed doors. But those to whom Lucas was dearest shed the fewes...

It was drawing towards evening on that same day when Anne, who had been spending the afternoon at the Dower House, walked back across the park. She went by way of the stream alo...

So, with an impetuous hand upon Anne's arm, he whisked her away on the following morning to his brother's room. She was dressed for departure, and waiting for the motor that was...

It was growing dusk when Anne at length came to the Manor. She was utterly weary and faint from lack of food. The servant who admitted her looked at her strangely, as if half af...

When Mrs. Errol remarked in her deep voice, that yet compassed the incomparable Yankee twang, that she guessed she wasn't afraid of any man that breathed, none of those who hear...

It was long before Anne slept that night, but yet though restless she was not wholly miserable. Neither was she perplexed. Her duty lay before her clearly defined, and she meant...

Sir Giles was in a decidedly evil temper as he rode home from the hunt in the soaking rain that afternoon. The second fox had led them miles out of the way, and they had not bee...

"Come right in!" said Mrs. Errol. "Anne, my dear, here is little Miss Waring come to see you. I'm real pleased to meet you, child. I've watched you in church many a time when I...

All the birds in the Manor garden were singing on that afternoon in May. The fruit trees were in bloom. The air was full of the indescribable fragrance of bursting flowers. Ther...

On the day succeeding Nap's return Dot went to tea at Baronmead. She was a very constant visitor there. Lucas always enjoyed her bright presence and welcomed her with warmth. Bu...

He was the best-known surgeon in the United States, and he looked like nothing so much as a seedy Evangelical parson. Hair, face, beard, all bore the same distinguishing qualiti...

Painfully the words came through quivering lips, the first they had uttered for hours. Lucas Errol lay, as he had lain for nearly three months, with his face to the ceiling, his...

She had her unopened letters with her, and she sat down to peruse them by an open window. The evening sun poured full upon her in fiery splendour. She leaned her head against th...

"Oh, bother! It's cake morning." Dot Waring turned from the Rectory breakfast-table with a flourish of impatience. "And I do so want to hear all about it," she said. "You might...

As soon as Anne entered Baronmead that evening she was aware of a difference. Bertie, with a thunderous countenance, came forward to meet her. She had not seen him wear that loo...

The idea of writing to her husband had come to her as an inspiration; not because she shirked an interview--she knew that to be inevitable--but because she realised that the fir...

They found a fox after some delay in a copse on the side of a hill, and the run that followed scattered even Anne's sedateness to the winds. Something of youth, something of gir...

A puff of rain-washed air wandered in through the wide-flung window, and Lucas Errol turned his head languidly upon the pillow to feel it on his face. He sighed as he moved, as...

On one occasion, and one only, in the whole year were the gates of the Manor thrown open to all comers, opulent Americans and impecunious Britons alike. And this was when, in ac...

The room was large and brilliantly lighted. In an easy chair by the fire the eldest Errol was reclining, while his valet, a huge man with the features of an American Indian half...

It was a day in the very heart of the summer, a day of cloudless skies and wonderful, magic breezes, a day for the dreaming--and perchance for the fulfilment--of dreams. Swift a...

It seemed to Anne presently that she had left the earth altogether, and was gliding upwards through starland without effort or conscious movement of any sort, simply as though l...

The Hunt Ball was over, and Mrs. Damer, wife of the M.F.H., was standing on the steps of the Carfax Arms, bidding the last members of the Hunt farewell.

The theatricals were arranged to take place on an evening in the beginning of July, and for that one night Mrs. Errol persuaded Anne to sleep at Baronmead. She would not consent...

It had certainly been a successful afternoon. Mrs. Errol smiled to herself as she drove back to Baronmead. Everything had gone well. Dear Anne had looked lovely, and she for one...

He had said it several times during a muddy two-mile tramp from Baronford Station, and he said it again as he turned up the hill that was crowned by the old grey church, whose t...

"Boney, old chap, you're the very man I want!" Such was Lucas Errol's greeting to the man who had shot like a thunderbolt into the peaceful atmosphere that surrounded him, to th...

For three weeks after the operation Capper said nothing good or bad of his patient's condition, and during those weeks he scarcely went beyond the terrace. He moved about like a...

Christmas came and went--the most peaceful Christmas that Anne had ever known. A wonderful peace had indeed begun to possess her. It was as if after long tossing she had come at...

"Nothing much," Nap said. "You might give me a sleeping-draught if you're disposed to be charitable. I seem to have lost the knack of going to sleep. What I really came to say w...

She had not seen Nap since that brief glimpse of him in the hall when Anne had so nearly swooned. She did not so much as know if Bertie had seen him at all. They had not met on...

There was a scent of musk in the room behind her, and an odour infinitely more alluring of roses and honeysuckle in the garden in front. Beyond the garden the common lay in the...