The Master Spirit

The light on the Clock Tower, that cheerful beacon which assures Britons that good and picked men are kept from their beds to raise the standard of their liberties, and, inciden...

Three years earlier there had been an appalling railway accident between Cordova and Seville. Two tightly packed trains had come into collision, with results that had prevented...

“Hardly all, dear lady,” Greetland simpered. He was one of the cohort of smart diners-out; the social bagmen who all travel in the same commodity, for which there is universal d...

The _Daily Comet_ came out next day with its threatened sensational blazon: the world of London and beyond greedily assimilated the startling tale, and their Graces the Duke and...

Countess Alexia of Rohnburg had had a few of her intimate friends to luncheon at the house in Green Street, and the last of them, Mary Riverdale, was still sitting with her in c...

“Yes,” Gastineau agreed, with a little cynical laugh that seemed characteristic of the man. “It is inevitable, as the world goes to-day. All tradesmen, advertising their wares,...

Before many days had passed Countess Alexia had reason to know that the enemy she had made and defied was at work against her. Her instinctive judgment of her unwelcome admirer’...

The Rullington case had come on, had dragged its ugly length through twenty sensational columns of print, and had ended with honours--or, rather, dishonours--easy. Incidentally,...

Suddenly it became known that the venue of the sensational Vaux House case was to be changed from a civil to a criminal court. The reasons for this were obvious. The one meant a...

One night, during the interval which fell between the magisterial proceedings and the trial proper, when the judgment of the law was yet suspended, while that of public opinion...

A less keen observer than Gastineau might have suspected that the position of Herriard and Countess Alexia was, at any rate on Herriard’s side, rapidly exceeding that of counsel...

In spite of the sceptical attitude which Gastineau seemed inclined to maintain towards it, the evidence of the man Campion, having been closely sifted and tested, was regarded o...

Herriard had indeed much to exercise his mind that night. Thinking over his interview with Gastineau, several things puzzled him. To begin with, he was at a loss to understand h...

It was a terrible and dismaying blow that had fallen so tragically upon the hopes of triumph and vindication. Herriard on his way to the Countess Alexia with the news--which had...

Deprived of its promised dramatic sensation scene, the trial which came on in the next week was, being mere repetition of what had been heard before, to all but the interested p...

They were sitting together in the drawing-room; Count Prosper and an Austrian girl, who was on a visit to England and had completed the _partie carrée_, were at the piano in the...

When he left Green Street that night Herriard had become possessed of a conviction, vague yet positive, that the events of his life were moving swiftly towards a crisis. How nea...

Herriard could not have told how long the tense situation lasted. Nor could he be sure whether Gastineau saw him or not. The shock of the astounding sight seemed to have deprive...

Once outside the house, the tension at which Herriard’s nerves had been strung during that surprising interview relaxed, and a whirl of troubling, anxious thoughts crowded to hi...

Inspector Quickjohn took the indicated seat and pulled out a large note-book, the orthodox preliminary to police communications. He was a rather smartly dressed man with a curio...

The door had closed upon Inspector Quickjohn, and Herriard sat motionless, as though dazed by this last turn of the situation. He had been wandering blindfold in a maze, and had...

It was all done in one swift action; the outcome of a planned determination. As Gastineau turned, Herriard saw that the scoffing contemptuous coolness had gone: his expression n...

“One is scarcely surprised to hear it,” Lady Rotherfield commented in a non-committal tone. Having once got down on the wrong side of the fence, she had climbed up again to her...

The gossips for once were right about Herriard and Countess Alexia. They were going to be married almost immediately, and with a view to that event Herriard was preparing to int...

On the appointed day Herriard journeyed down to address his constituents at Bradbury. Since their meeting in Mount Street, he had seen or heard nothing of Gastineau. He had, how...

On that same evening in London it was announced to Countess Alexia that a Mr. Maxton was in the morning-room waiting to see her on urgent business. Her brother was not at home,...

The declaration, although no news to Alexia, was, coming as it did, startlingly unexpected. It was, moreover, as she instinctively realized, a cunning move which forced her into...

By the earliest train next morning Alexia and her brother travelled down to Bradbury, and found to their relief that Herriard’s condition was not nearly so serious as they had f...

One evening the monotony of the Herriard’s delightful existence under the shadow of the grey old Schloss was broken by the appearance of a company of poor strolling players. The...

“At last, Mr. Geoffrey Herriard, we meet again; and finally,” the cold, incisive voice said; and Herriard knew that the crisis of his fate, possibly his last minute of life, had...