The Testing of Diana Mallory

One Saturday in early August, some weeks after the incident described in the last chapter, Bobbie Forbes, in the worst inn's worst fly, such being the stress and famine of elect...

The Whitsuntide recess passed--for the wanderers in Italy--in a glorious prodigality of sun, a rushing of bud and leaf to "feed in air," a twittering of birds, a splendor of war...

The voice was determined. Muriel Colwood--startled and dismayed--surveyed the speaker. She had been waylaid on the threshold of her room. The morning was half-way through. Visit...

"The world is divided into wise men, fools, and mothers. The characters of the first two are mingled--disproportionately--in the last," said Dr. Roughsedge, patiently enduring t...

Late on Monday afternoon Lady Niton paid a call in Eaton Square. She and Lady Lucy were very old friends, and rarely passed a week when they were both in town without seeing eac...

Diana and Muriel Colwood stood up eagerly in the carriage, and there at the end of the long white road, blazing on the mountain-side, terrace upon terrace, arch upon arch, rose...

Alicia Drake--a vision of pale pink--had just appeared in the long gallery at Tallyn, on her way to dinner. Her dress, her jewels, and all her minor appointments were of that qu...

"I regard this second appeal to West Brookshire as an insult!" said the Vicar of Beechcote, hotly. "If Mr. Marsham must needs accept an office that involved re-election he might...

A sad hurrying and murmuring filled the old rooms and passages of Beechcote. The village doctor had arrived, and under his direction the body of John Ferrier had been removed fr...

Sir James Chide was giving tea to a couple of guests at Lytchett Manor. It was a Saturday in late September. The beech-trees visible through the drawing-room windows were still...

Owing to the scantiness of Sunday trains, Marsham did not arrive at Beechcote village till between nine and ten at night. He left his bag at the village inn, tried to ignore the...

It was about ten o'clock at night. Lankester, who had arrived from London an hour before, had said good-night to Lady Lucy and Sir James, and had slipped into Marsham's room. Ma...

"She looks tired out!" said the little companion to herself, as she turned to enter the hall. "How on earth is she going to get through six weeks of it?--or six months!"

The last covert had been shot, and as Marsham and his party, followed by scattered groups of beaters, turned homeward over the few fields that separated them from the park, figu...

The clock in the tower of the village church had just struck the quarter. In the southeast a pale dawn light was beginning to show above the curving hollow of the down wherein t...

During the days immediately following her arrival at Beechcote, Mrs. Colwood applied herself to a study of Miss Mallory and her surroundings--none the less penetrating because t...

The next day, when Diana looked out from her window, she saw a large and dreary park wrapped in scudding rain which promised evil things for the shooting-party of the day. Mr. M...

Marsham's first feeling, as he advanced into the room, and, looking round him, saw that Diana was alone, was one of acute physical pleasure. The old room with its mingling of co...

"Her ladyship will be here directly, sir." Lady Lucy's immaculate butler opened the door of her drawing-room in Eaton Square, ushered in Sir James Chide, noiselessly crossed the...

London was in full season. But it was a cold May, and both the town and its inhabitants wore a gray and pinched aspect. Under the east wind an unsavory dust blew along Piccadill...

Marsham reached Felton Hall about six o'clock. The house, a large Georgian erection, belonging to pleasant easy-going people with many friends, was full of guests, and the thoug...

The footman disappeared. As soon as the door was shut Marsham sank back into his cushions with a stifled groan. He was lying on a sofa in his own sitting-room. A fire burned in...

The questioner was Hugh Roughsedge. The young soldier had walked up to Beechcote immediately after luncheon, finding it impossible to restrain his impatience longer. Diana had n...

Lady Lucy did not reply at once. She slowly drew forward the neglected tea-table, made tea, and offered it to Sir James. He took it impatiently, the Irish blood in him running h...

_"Action is transitory--a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle--this way or that-- 'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed: Suffering is per...