The Sign of the Seven Sins

No; I dare not reveal everything here, lest I may be misjudged. The narrative is, to say the least, a strange one; so amazing, indeed, that had I not been one of the actual pers...

The fault of us women is that we so often over-esteem the value of our good looks. To my mind the possession of handsome toilettes is quite as essential to a woman’s well-being...

“What awfully good luck you had!” he observed after we had been chatting some time. “If you’d had the maximum on each time you’d have won about four thousand dollars.”

The favorite of Fortune, who only a couple of hours before had been so full of life and buoyant spirits, and who had left us with a promise to return within ten minutes, was now...

Visitors to Nice know the great white mansion. High up above the sea, beyond the Magnam bridge, it stands in the midst of extensive grounds shaded by date-palms, olives, and ora...

Day by day for many days we went over to Monte Carlo, why, I can scarcely tell. All visitors to Nice drift there as if by the natural law of gravitation, and we were no exceptio...

Now, I may be given to harmless frivolities with men of my own age, but I certainly have never endeavored to attract those of maturer years. Elderly men may have admired me,--th...

“You are a perfect stranger, sir,” I said with considerable hauteur. “Until you care to give me your name, and make known who you are, I have no wish to hear this important stat...

For some little time after my mysterious companion had left I sat forward in the box, gazing down at the wild revelry below, and hoping that one or other of the party would reco...

They examined the leather jewelry case, but found no mark upon it nor upon the paper wrappings. The box was such as might have once contained a bracelet, but the raised velvet-c...

“Then M’sieur the Directeur was tricked, just as you were,” he answered gravely. “You say that you actually received from the hands of some one who wore an effective disguise th...

A man may commit follies; but once cured, those follies expand his nature. With a woman, alas! follies are always debasing. It was, I knew, a folly to love him.

My foothold was insecure, and the sight which presented itself as I peered within was so unexpected and startling, that in the excitement of the moment I loosened my grip and na...

The great broad plain which lies between marble-built old Pisa and the sea was flooded by the golden Italian sunset, and the background of the serrated Apennines loomed a dark p...

The countenance disclosed by the lamp in the great ill-lit station was not that of a man in female disguise, as I had suspected, but of a woman. Her identity it was that held me...

So still, so pale, so bloodless were my mysterious companion’s lips, that at the first moment I feared she might be dead. Her appearance was that of a corpse, but after careful...

The discovery of Ernest’s presence in the car was an entirely fresh development of the mystery. I had been ignorant of his acquaintance with Keppel, but that they were really cl...

I walked along the boulevard towards the Opera as one in a dream. To that woman with the tow-colored hair, the blue eyes, and pink cheeks--the woman who had replaced me in his a...

I stepped back quickly, while he, with eyes fixed upon that fair-haired woman, who seemed the centre of a miniature court, failed to notice me. Upon his face was a dark, anxious...

The woman Fournereau crossed the room quickly to a small rosewood bureau and took therefrom a little card-board box about a couple of inches square, such as are used for cheap j...

Need I dwell further upon the stirring events of that night? It is assuredly sufficient to say that the arrests made by the police numbered nearly forty persons, all of whom wer...