The Missioner

The lady of Thorpe was bored. These details as to leases and repairs were wearisome. The phrases and verbiage confused her. She felt obliged to take them in some measure for gra...

Victor Macheson smoked his after-breakfast pipe with the lazy enjoyment of one who is thoroughly at peace with himself and his surroundings. The tiny strip of lawn on to which h...

Wilhelmina was resting--and looked in need of it. All the delicate colours and fluttering ribbons of her Doucet dressing-jacket could not hide the pallor of her cheeks, or the h...

A footman entered the room a few minutes later, and obedient, without a doubt, to some previously given command, waited behind his mistress' chair until a hand had been played....

Macheson in those days felt himself rapidly growing older. An immeasurable gap seemed to lie between him and the eager young apostle who had plunged so light-heartedly into the...

Over a marble-topped table in a retired corner of the cafe Stephen Hurd listened to the story of the man whom Macheson had delivered over to him, and the longer he listened the...

It was exactly such a day as he would have chosen for his purpose when Macheson stepped out of the train at the wayside station and set his face towards Thorpe. A strong bluster...

"Victor," he cried, "don't look at me as though you wanted to punch my head. Down on your knees, man, and pray for a sense of humour. It's the very salt of life."

A great dinner party had come to an end, and the Lord-Lieutenant of the county bowed low over the cold hand of his departing guest, in whose honour it had been given. A distant...

In obedience to her gesture, the horses were checked, and the footman clambered down and stood at their heads. Deyes, from his somewhat uncomfortable back seat in the victoria,...

That night, and for many nights afterwards, Macheson devoted himself to his work in the East End. The fascination of the thing grew upon him; he threw himself into his task with...

"I think you had much better not, Letty," he answered. "He ought not to have let you miss your train. My friend here and I are going to look after you."

"We seem to be just in time, Mr. Hurd," Wilhelmina said. "Do you mind coming back for a moment into your study? Mr. Macheson and I have something to say to you."

"No stalls left," Holderness declared, turning away from the box office at the Alhambra. "We'll go in the promenade. We can find a chair there if we want to sit down."

"They have gone over to this wonderful Convalescent Home that Macheson is building in the hills," he remarked. "I am not sure that I consider it good manners to leave us to ente...

Up the broad avenue to the great house of Thorpe, Stephen Hurd slowly made his way, his hands clasped behind him, his eyes fixed upon the ground. But his appearance was not alto...

Hortense smiled softly to herself as she laid down the ivory-backed brushes. What did it mean, she wondered, when her mistress went out with tired eyes and pallid cheeks, and ca...

Macheson woke with the daylight, stiff, a little tired, and haunted with the consciousness of disturbing dreams. He sprang to his feet and stretched himself. Then he saw the roses.

He refused the chair which she had motioned him to wheel up to the fire. He stood glowering down upon her, pale, stern, yet not wholly master of himself. Against the sombre blac...

Monsieur Francois piloted the little party himself to the corner table which he had reserved for them. He had taken a fancy to this tall young Englishman, whose French, save for...

Never was a young man more pleased with himself than Stephen Hurd, on the night he dined at Thorpe-Hatton. He had shot well all day, and been accepted with the utmost cordiality...

The mistress of Thorpe stooped to pat a black Pomeranian which had rushed out to meet her. It was when she indulged in some such movement that one realized more thoroughly the w...

It was a round table, too, at which Macheson dined that night, but with a different company. For they were all men who sat there, men with earnest faces and thoughtful eyes. The...

With upraised skirts, and feet that flashed like silver across the turf and amongst the bracken, Wilhelmina flew homewards. Once more her heart was like the heart of a girl. Her...

High up on the seventh floor of one of London's newest and loftiest buildings, a young man sat writing in a somewhat barely furnished office. He wrote deliberately, and with the...

"My dear child," she said, "is it likely I should keep you here without orders? We have sent a telegram to your mother, and you are to wait until the mistress is ready to see you."

There flashed a quick look of intelligence between the waiter and a maitre d'hotel who was lingering near. The latter hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. It was a noisy par...

Macheson knew directly they entered the farm that Wilhelmina had brought him here for some purpose. For Mrs. Foulton straightened herself at the sight of him, and forgot even he...

Stephen Hurd walked into the room which he and his father shared as a sanctum, half office, half study. Mr. Hurd, senior, was attired in his conventional Sabbath garb, the same...

"I haven't the least idea who takes anybody in," she declared. "James said he'd see to that, so you might just as well put your hand in a lucky-bag. And I'm not at all sure that...

"I'm sorry I asked you that," he said quietly. "Look here! I know what you've come to me for, and I can give it you. You can start at once if you like."

"To-night," young Davenant declared, with something which was suspiciously like a yawn, "I really think that we must chuck it just a little earlier. Shall we say that we leave h...

Out amongst the broken fragments of the storm, on the hill-top and down the rain-drenched lane, Macheson sought in vain by physical exertion to still the fever which burned in h...

The late Stephen Hurd had been a methodical man. Every one of those many packets of foolscap and parchment bore in the left-hand corner near the top a few carefully written word...

"For the first time in my life," Deyes declared, accepting the cigarette and the easy-chair, "I have appreciated Paris. I have gone there as a tourist. I have drunk strange drin...

Alone for the first moment of the evening, it seemed to Macheson that a sudden wave of confounding thoughts surged into his brain, at war from the first with all that was sensuo...

Out in the lane a motley little group of men were standing. Stephen Hurd was in the act of springing off his brown cob. The dogs were already in the shelter.

I MISTRESS AND AGENT 1 II THE HUNTER AND HIS QUARRY 13 III FIRST BLOOD 22 IV BEATING HER WINGS 32 V EVICTED 41 VI CRICKET AND PHILOSOPHY 52 VII AN UNDERNOTE OF MUSIC 61 VIII ROS...

I RATHER A GHASTLY PART 172 II PLAYING WITH FIRE 180 III MONSIEUR S'AMUSE 188 IV AT THE "DEAD RAT" 196 V THE AWAKENING 204 VI THE ECHO OF A CRIME 210 VII A COUNTRY WALK 218 VIII...