The Secret Power

A cloud floated slowly above the mountain peak. Vast, fleecy and white as the crested foam of a sea-wave, it sailed through the sky with a divine air of majesty, seeming almost...

She laughed again. A strange white elf as she looked In the spreading moonbeams she was woman to the core, and the disdainful movement of her small uplifted head plainly express...

The speaker, a young woman fashionably attired and seated in a rocking chair in the verandah of a favourite summer hotel on Long Island, raised her eyes and shrugged her shoulde...

Morgana, dotted only in a white silk nightgown, sitting on the edge of her bed with her small rosy toes peeping out beneath the tiny frill of her thin garment, looked at the bro...

That evening at sunset Manella made her way towards the hill and the "House of the Dying," moved by she knew not what strange impulse. She had no excuse whatever for going; she...

From California to Sicily is a long way. It used to be considered far longer than it is now but in these magical days of aerial and motor travelling, distance counts but little,...

Perhaps there is no lovelier effect in all nature than a Sicilian sunset, when the sky is one rich blaze of colour and the sea below reflects every vivid hue as in a mirror,--wh...

Early dawn peered through the dark sky like the silvery light of a pale lamp carried by an advancing watchman,--and faintly illumined the outline of a long, high, vastly extendi...

The priest was pacing slowly up and down the old half-ruined cloister of an old half-ruined monastery, and beside his stately, black-robed figure moved the small aerial form of...

Roger Seaton was a man of many philosophies. He had one for every day in the week, yet none wherewith to thoroughly satisfy himself. While still a mere lad he had taken to the s...

Mr. Sam Gwent stood in what was known as the "floral hall" of the Plaza Hotel, so called because it was built in colonnades which opened into various vistas of flowers and clamb...

Gwent was silent. With methodical care he flicked off the burnt end of his cigar and watched it where it fell, as though it were something rare and curious. He wanted a few minu...

On his return to the Plaza Mr. Sam Gwent tried to get some conversation with Manella, but found it difficult. She did not wait on the visitors in the dining-room, and Gwent imag...

Convention is still occasionally studied even in these unconventional days, and Morgana Royal, independent and wealthy young woman as she was, had subscribed to its rule and ord...

Two or three hours later the "White Eagle" was high in air above the Palazzo d'Oro. Down below Lady Kingswood stood on the seashore by the aerodrome, watching the wonderful ship...

That evening Morgana was in one of her most bewitching moods--even the old Highland word "fey" scarcely described her many brilliant variations from grave to gay, from gay to ro...

Roger Seaton asked the question of Manella, twirling in his hand an unopened letter she had just given him. She nodded in the affirmative. He looked at her critically, amused at...

A red sky burned over Egypt,--red with deep intensity of spreading fire. The slow-creeping waters of the Nile washed patches of dull crimson against the oozy mud-banks, tipping...

"Asleep--asleep!" he exclaimed--"_Mon Dieu!_--the shame of it!--the shame! What pigs are men! To sleep after food and wine, and to leave a woman alone like this!... the shame!"

For some days after her adventurous voyage to the Great Desert and back Morgana chose to remain in absolute seclusion. Save for Lady Kingswood and her own household staff, she s...

Roger Seaton said these words aloud with defiant emphasis, addressing the dumb sky. It was early morning, but an intense heat had so scorched the earth that not the smallest dro...

Of all the vagaries and humours of humanity when considered in crowds, there is nothing which appears more senseless and objectless than the way in which it congregates outside...

Struck by the hand of God! So men say when, after denying God's existence ail their lives, the seeming solid earth heaves up like a ship on a storm-billow, dragging down in its...

A great silence pervaded the Palazzo d'Oro,--the strained silence of an intense activity weighted with suspense. Servants moved about here and there with noiseless rapidity,--Do...

A brilliant morning broke over the flower-filled gardens of the Palazzo d'Oro, and the sea, stretched out in a wide radiance of purest blue shimmered with millions of tiny silve...

Don Aloysius sat in his private library,--a room little larger than a monastic cell, and at his feet knelt Morgana like a child at prayer. The rose and purple glow of the sunset...