The White Virgin

Clive Reed stood up like a statue on a natural pedestal, high on the precipitous slope. It was a great ponderous block of millstone grit, which had become detached just at the s...

"Hah! I nearly had you that time, my fine fellow," said Major Gurdon, as he stood deep in the shade, where twilight was falling fast, and ever and anon he deftly threw a fly wit...

"I will go on, sir; I will say what I like, and I will risk its hurting you, for I feel towards you as a father, and it maddens me to see my old friend Grantham's son behaving l...

Jessop Reed took good care that his brother should have no opportunity for meeting him to bring him to book, and during the interval before Grantham Reed's funeral the only news...

A man was going through the street with his pole extinguishing the gas lamps, as the hansom cab bearing Clive Reed went along at a sharp trot toward Russell Square. The waning l...

"I say no insolence, sir. I am aware of the fact that you are an excellent workman and valuable to me here, but you are presuming on those facts, and I warn you that if ever you...

"The latest news on 'Change, sir, is worse than that which we wired to you. It is disastrous, and seems to me like the bursting of a bubble. But it may not be so bad. We are qui...

"No, my dear, I'm not going to play the tragedy parent and talk about cursing and all that sort of thing. I'm only a plain matter-of-fact Englishman, leading too busy a life to...

Clive Reed crossed the spoil bank one evening after a busy day at the mine, leaving a black cloud of smoke still rising where the furnaces were hard at work, turning the grey st...

"Who is to believe that, when you never come near us. Eh? My daughter! Yes, thank heaven, I think that she is a little better. She is gradually losing that scared, frightened lo...

"Come, I say, my dear, what's the good of being so stand-offish. It's very nice and pretty, and makes a man fonder of you, and that's why you do it, I know! I say! I didn't know...

Jessop started aside in abject fear, and made a rush to escape by passing his brother in the narrow path, but, with a cry of rage, Clive struck at him.

"Live, my own dearest, live," murmured Dinah, as she knelt beside Clive's couch, listening to his never-ending mutterings, as the fever ran its course, and mingled with the ince...

"No, no, don't blame the poor lads," said a well-dressed, elderly man, smiling. "They were alarmed at your long absence, sir, and came on to me for help. We came round, and pick...

"For Clive's sake," she said to herself, as the charge exploded, and the recoil of the loosely held gun rent the bodice of her dress and jerked her violently backward.

It was a curious blending of the bitter and the sweet when Clive Reed came down to the Blinkdale Moor. To a man of his temperament, it was maddening to find himself completely s...

"Come, come, this will not do," continued the Doctor. "I don't want to have you upon my hands as a patient. Now, look here; I promise you that all will come right, and it is not...

Breakfast-time at the cottage, and as a step was heard upon the stony path, Dinah rose quickly from her seat, then coloured and resumed her place, for she knew that it was impos...

Dinah Gurdon stood for a time grasping the back of a chair, battling with a fit of trembling and the strange sense of dread, which rapidly increased till in the enervation it pr...

The days went by slowly and sadly. Letters came regularly enough, but they were not hopeful, for Clive told how he was hemmed in by difficulties which prevented his stirring: an...

Dinah Gurdon sat near the shaded lamp with her eyes directed toward the open window, and her face transformed by the thoughts within her breast. For the love-light burned brilli...

"Go on," cried the Major excitedly; "she must hear it now. Hold up, my child, only an accident--a slip: trying to make some short cut in the dark. Now, then," he continued, with...

The Doctor stood holding his old friend's hand, and gazing sadly down in the fine manly face, which looked wonderfully calm and peaceful as he lay back on the white pillow.

Jessop Reed, when he left his father's bedroom, had gone straight down to the study, with his brow contracted and his heart full of bitterness, without seeing that he was closel...

"Well, what news?" said Wrigley, as Jessop Reed entered his gloomy office. "Bah! what a dandy you are! Why, you spend enough on barbers and buttonholes to keep you from borrowin...

"Don't be startled, Mr Reed," said the Major, who had tapped at his door. "We don't have policemen here to go their rounds. Some scoundrel was after my chickens, I expect; and t...

Jessop Reed took off his glossy, fashionable hat, laid a gold-headed malacca cane across it as he placed it upon the table, and then shot his cuffs out of the sleeves of his Cit...

"Yes, old fellow, Jessop. How are you? Quite a coincidence; Miss--Miss Gurdon, I think?" said the visitor, turning to Dinah. "I called here by accident on my way to find my brot...

"That you are a scoundrel, my dear boy? Oh, dear no; I think you one of the best of fellows, or I would not have allowed that engagement to take place; and as I said to Janet, w...

It was a long, thin, white finger, one which had felt the throbbing of hundreds and thousands of pulses, and Doctor Praed, after viciously flicking at a fly which tried persiste...

"I daresay he is," replied Wrigley; "but this is no time for pouring your domestic troubles on my head. What did you mean by telling me that this man, Sturgess, fell down a shaft?"

"Oh, all right. I'll go up," said Clive; and he began to ascend two steps at a time. "I hope Jess isn't ill. Disappointed, I suppose, at finding the old man out."--"Ah, Janet, d...

"No, no. There is a man there, one Sturgess, the foreman, grievously ill, and this Mr Wrigley, knowing that you are here, has sent their clerk Robson over with a message begging...

Letters reached the cottage at frequent intervals after the Major's return, in which as he breathed in every line his intense affection, Clive fretted at the chain which still b...

Michael Sturgess muttered an oath, and leaned forward over the sharp slope, as he wiped the great drops of fear-born perspiration from his face. "Child, am I?" he muttered. "I'l...

"Hold your tongue, boy! Don't contradict me. You're not to think because your father is dead that you are going to do just as you like. Try some more of that claret; it's very g...

There was joy in the little cottage by the swiftly running river one day about a fortnight later, when a shadow was cast across the window; and with a cry of delight Dinah looke...

"No, sir," said the old woman, shaking her head, as she opened the basket, and looked at the three brace of handsome trout lying in a bed of freshly-plucked heather. "Poor girl!...

"Oh yes, I know I'm a fool--fool to believe all your wicked lies. And so would you be jealous. I saw it all last time she was here--a slut engaged to be married to your brother,...

"But, my dear boy, why not have made a fight for it?" cried the Major, as he perspired profusely in his efforts to keep up with Clive, who was striding about the garden.