The poisoned paradise: A romance of Monte Carlo

“Yes, dearest. He died just before you were born. I came here hoping that his people, so rich, so proud, would be glad to see you. But, no, they cannot understand.... We’ll go h...

Submissively from the shadow of the doorway slipped a girl. She had twin braids of pale gold hair, and between them like a wedge, her face showed waxen with cold.

Two o’clock in the morning at the Gare du Montparnasse. The girl was dazed and weary. She sat on her bundle in the stale greyness of the station, waiting anxiously for the dawn....

The crash of the closing door struck a note of terror in the girl’s heart. It was long after midnight, and she was at the mercy of this sinister city. She tripped over a box of...

She found a little room in that quarter of Paris known as the _Nation_. It was bright and high, and open to the sky. During the year she had worked in the bar she had saved a fe...

As she shrank back into the remote corner of the first class compartment, Margot sighed profoundly. She had been thinking of the strange events of the past month and of the bewi...

Then began the great struggle of Margot Leblanc to regain the money she had lost. It was a pitiable, pathetic struggle, full of desperate hope. Starting with ten francs, she sou...

THE woman he used to call aunty kept a rooming house on Balmoral Circus, and the boy’s earliest memories were of domestic drudgery. He cleaned boots until nearly midnight, smudg...

Pines packed the vast valley, climbing raggedly to the pale grey peaks. Sometimes the mountains swooped down in gulch and butte of fantastic beauty. The pines were pale green in...

An amiable, early morning sun was irradiating that great theatre which is Monte Carlo, and a regiment of stage hands were preparing the scene for another day. Hawk-eyed bands of...

Christmas had come and gone, a strange, unreal Christmas, with none of those rigors and austerities that Hugh had been accustomed to associate with the season. The long stretch...

Hugh was preparing to leave the Pension Paoli. Its increasing atmosphere of furtiveness and suspicion was getting on his nerves. He had taken a large, sunny unfurnished room in...

Shrinking against the wall the girl looked up at him, her face sick with terror. Amazement turned him to stone. Then suddenly he recovered himself; and his astonishment changed...

Monte Carlo is various kinds of a jewel. In the morning it glitters like a diamond; in the afternoon it gleams like a great pearl of the Orient; in the evening it glows with the...

“No better than you are. Perhaps I’ve had just as hard a struggle in life as you have. I’ve always been poor. I’m poor now. I want to think you are my little sister, and I am yo...

The girl looked at him in surprise. It had been his habit after supper to light his pipe and read until bedtime, or else work at his eternal permanencies. She had enjoyed these...

“Confound the girl!” he thought. “What right has she to be so proud! Pride is for those who can afford it. There she was, sick, desperate, without one _sou_. I saved her from go...

In two weeks Margot was able to limp about; and, as nothing more was said about her departure, she quietly reassumed her household duties. Hugh was happy. He was free to gamble....

Looking in the direction in which Mr. Gimp’s finger pointed Hugh saw a tall, slim man sauntering across the hall. He had fair hair, brushed smoothly back, and features of the co...

He laughed. “You know your mother’s in the Casino playing the fool, with money I lent her,--the last, by God! she ever gets from me,--unless you are more amiable. I say, let’s g...

During his long spells of waiting, he became more and more intimately acquainted with the world of the Casino,--from the prowling seeker of the sure-shot to the holiday plunger,...

The professor advanced with an impressive dignity. Even the two blue-coated attendants who guarded the middle portal stared and gaped. They were used to strange figures, but nev...

As the following day was Sunday the professor did not play. Instead he went to early mass accompanied by Margot, to whom he had taken a fancy, and in the afternoon the two went...

“I thocht I knew something o’ roulette, but noo I maun jist go back tae Strathbungo and play dominoes. And you, young man, wi’ that canny wee smile on yer gub,--I’m thinkin’ ye...

When he got home he found Margot was still up. She was sewing under the lamp-glow, her coiled mass of hair a bright gold as she bent over her work, her face pale but full of pat...

Hugh continued to be haunted by thoughts of Mrs. Belmire. At times he felt he would throw up everything to follow her; at others he consigned her to the devil. He had resolved t...

About him were bare, white-washed walls; the light came by grudgingly through a small barred window that gave on rock and shrub. He struggled to a sitting position on the pallet...

The next three days were more miserable to Hugh than those he had spent in prison. He missed Margot keenly. He had become so used to her; she had waited on him so devotedly; had...

The three swung round and jerked their hands above their heads. A very tall man stood in the doorway. He had a spade-shaped beard and a coppery complexion. His hair of a glossy...

About the end of May he bought the cottage near Villefranche. It had pinkish walls that dripped roses and a long generous garden dropping to the beach. There he had a little boa...

He is more prosperous than ever. He has a grand auto, and a villa near the forest of St. Germain. On Sunday with Jeanne we drive out to see it, and it is truly charming. Only he...

Hugh dashed the brass inkwell at the head of Doctor Bergius. The doctor collapsed over the table. Castelli, who was still on the floor in a crouching position, clutched at Hugh’...

In the glimmer of early dawn, the big boat swung slowly into the harbour. Under the lightening sky the steel grey waters changed to steel blue; and the dark mysterious land smil...

Amid the gorges of the Golo the white road wound on and up. The _maquis_ encroached on it, frowned on it shaggily. Once or twice Hugh plunged into the perfumed cover and explore...

He sprang to the little green car and spun the handle. Would it start or not? The motor breathed gently. Exultation flamed in him. A good car and a good road ... the devil himse...

He intended to remain in the cover of the forest, even, if need be, to spend the night there. In any case he would keep well away from the road and work through the wild country...

In the eerie half-light he saw four black shadows draw near to the house and a knock at the door followed. He heard Pascal grumbling as he got out of bed. Then the inn-keeper’s...

“Yonder black hole in the mountain side. That is my front entrance. Incidentally there is a back one for my private use, and only known to myself. But maybe you have heard of me...

A little after daylight they left the cave and descended the mountain. With Rocco leading they plunged into the first fringe of forest and by a a little toe-trail travelled swif...

How strange is the romance of destiny! Four nights before he had lain in a cave in the hinterland of Corsica, listening to a brigand’s tale of blood, and now, behold, he was in...

I wrote to you in Menton, and the letter came back. But the other day a man in the office saw you in Paris and gave me your address. He also gave me a very good account of you;...