The Ragged Edge

Ah cum began to worry. Each morning his inquiry was properly answered: the patient was steadily improving, but none could say when he would be strong enough to proceed upon his...

Next morning Ruth did not refer to the episode on the sands of the lagoon. Here again instinct guided her. If he had nothing to tell her, she had nothing to ask. She did not wan...

His idea, cleverly planned, was to shatter her resistance, to confound her suddenly by striking her mind with words which would rob her coherent thought. Everything in his favou...

Every morning at dawn it was Spurlock's custom to take a plunge in the lagoon. Ruth took hers in the sea, but was careful never to go beyond her depth because of the sharks. She...

Spurlock went out on his toes, careful lest the bamboo curtain rattle behind him. He went into the study and sat down at his table, but not to write. He drew out the check and t...

Spurlock's novel was a tale of regeneration. For a long time to come that would naturally be the theme of any story he undertook to write. After he was gone in the morning, Ruth...

To Spurlock it seemed as if a great iron door had swung in behind him, shutting out the old world. He was safe, out of the beaten track, at last really comparable to the needle...

McClintock's island was twelve miles long and eight miles wide, with the shape of an oyster. The coconut plantation covered the west side. From the white beach the palms ran in...

Ruth lost the point entirely. The doctor expected her to seize upon the subtle inference that there was something furtive, even criminal, in the manner the patient set this obli...

"I imagine that Mr. O'Higgins is rather a kindly man. He couldn't have taken Mr. Spurlock back to Hong-Kong with him, so he considered it would be needless to give an additional...

The second call energized her into action. She dropped the manuscripts and swiftly brought the coat to him, noting that a button hung loose. Later, she would sew it on.

The doctor reached for the key and studied it sombrely. The act was mechanical, a bit of sparring for time: his anger was searching about for a new vent. He was a just man, and...

Slowly Ruth entered her own room. She opened her suitcase--new and smelling strongly of leather--and took out of it a book, dogeared and precariously held together, bound in fad...

At dinner the spinsters invited Ruth to sit at their table, an invitation she accepted gratefully. She was not afraid exactly, but there was that about her loneliness to-night s...

He had said it, spoken it like that ... his own name! After all these weeks of trying to obliterate even the memory of it!... to have given it to this girl without her asking!

After the Ten Commandments have been spoken, conscience becomes less something inherent than something acquired. It is now a point of view, differing widely, as the ignorant man...

Ruth was inflammable; she would always be flaring up swiftly, in pity, in tenderness, in anger; she would always be answering impulses, without seeking to weigh or to analyse th...

"Your tone suggests something marvellous in the fact," replied Ah Cum, ironically. "Why shouldn't a Chinaman be honest? Ah, yes; I know. Most of you Americans pattern all Chines...

The astonishing collapse of Spurlock created a tableau of short duration. Then the hotel manager struck his palms together sharply, and two Chinese "boys" came pattering in from...

The Hong-Kong packet lay alongside the warehouse frontage. Ah Cum patrolled the length of the boat innumerable times, but never letting his glance stray far from the gangplank....

The Master is inordinately fond of young fools. That is why they are permitted to rush in where angels fear to tread--and survive their daring! This supreme protection, this unw...

The tourists returned to the Sha-mien at four o'clock. They were silent and no longer observant, being more or less exhausted by the tedious action of the chairs. Even Ah Cum ha...

Previous to his illness, Spurlock's mind had been tortured by an appalling worry, so that now, in the process of convalescence, it might be compared to a pool which had been vio...

Spurlock pushed back his helmet and sat down in the white sand, buckling his knees and folding his arms around them--pondering. Was he really awake? The arrival and departure of...

Ah Cum lived at No. 6 Chiu Ping le, Chiu Yam Street. He was a Canton guide, highly educated, having been graduated from Yale University. If he took a fancy to you, he invited yo...

The doctor shifted his books and magazines to the crook of his elbow. He had done this a dozen times on the way from his office. Books were always sliding and slipping, clumsy o...

Sidney Carton, thought Ruth, in pursuit of a sing-song girl! The idea was so incongruous that a cold little smile parted her lips. It seemed as if each time her imagination reac...