The mill house mystery

The July sun was pouring floods of blinding, glaring light upon the town of Dourville, which, lying in a great chasm between two high white lines of cliff, and straggling under...

The day after this conversation with Bessie, Rhoda was allowed downstairs for the first time. Sir Robert was kindness itself to her, though he was rather puzzled by the extreme...

Ten years passed before Rhoda Pembury saw Sir Robert Hadlow or the old Mill-house again, and during those ten years all that she heard of him or of his doings was through an ann...

“Ah, Miss Pembury, there’s been a many changes since the night when you ran away from here!” she said, as she sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “But why did you go so quic...

Rhoda was abashed and shocked by the expression on Lady Sarah’s face. She had, indeed, felt rather nervous about the meeting, but she had not expected that the sight of her woul...

On the contrary, she went out of her way to be charming to her boy’s companion, openly congratulating herself on having provided him with such an amiable friend, and told Rhoda,...

Rhoda, with her eyes fixed on the scarred hand, did not see either of the faces turned towards her, did not catch the quick look exchanged between Jack Rotherfield and Lady Sara...

When she reached home, Rhoda was met in the hall by Sir Robert. His usually placid countenance was disturbed, and a horrible suspicion flashed through her mind, as he came strai...

Half ashamed of herself for her suspicions, Rhoda yet could not but feel that they all pointed in the same direction. And she shuddered at the thought that this plot had been ma...

In spite of the strength of her suspicions, it was strange that Rhoda’s interest in Lady Sarah grew stronger from that evening when she became fairly certain in her own mind tha...

The first impulse of thankfulness and delight, in the thought that she had rescued Sir Robert’s favourite picture, that in a few moments he would be congratulating himself on it...

Sir Robert was deep in his studies when she entered like a whirlwind, with bright eyes and voluble tongue, bearing in her arms a roll in which the baronet altogether failed to r...

Sir Robert was watching the pair curiously: noting the feverish gladness with which the boy clung to Rhoda’s hand, and the tenderness with which she, in return, bent over him.

“You lazy girl! You’re always curled up in a chair or a couch, and you never take any exercise. Come out and race me to the end of the grass path. I don’t believe you’ve been ou...

Jack Rotherfield made no reply; indeed the hands of Sir Robert were pressing so tightly on his throat that he could scarcely have spoken if he had wished to do so.

On the following morning Sir Robert went to Jack’s room before that young man was up, and sitting on the edge of his bed, gave him such a searching catechism, ending with such a...

She desired nothing less than another _tête-à-tête_ with the enraged and disappointed woman whom she had just saved from disgrace and guilt. For Lady Sarah was not grateful: the...

It was a relief to them all when Sir Robert made an excuse of urgent letters to write and bid the ladies good-night immediately after dinner, but on the other hand, Minnie and R...

Scarcely had the housekeeper given this answer to her master’s inquiry, when a loud knocking at the front door, and the long tinkling of the electric bell, announced that some o...

There was an inquest, but Rhoda happily escaped once more the trial of being called as a witness. Her health had broken down under the strain of the past few weeks, and although...