The Wiles of the Wicked

Although many days passed, no word of apology came from my mysterious correspondent for not having kept the appointment. I watched every post for nearly a fortnight, and as I re...

For two days the woman I was watching did not go out. I learnt from the chambermaid who, like all her class, was amenable to half a sovereign in her palm, that she was unwell, s...

"Mrs Slade is still in her room, sir, but she's not alone; her maid arrived from London last night," answered the chambermaid at the _North-Eastern Hotel_ at Hull, when on the f...

Dressed in a tight-fitting tailor-made gown of some dark cloth, and a neat toque, she looked dignified and altogether charming. The slight severity of attire became her well, fo...

The adjoining room was, I found, in the front part of the house--a rather small one, lined on one side with books, but furnished more as a boudoir than a library, for there were...

I approach this and the following chapters of my secret personal history with feelings of amazement and of thankfulness that I should still be alive and able to write down the t...

"Rise, and try whether you can walk," said the voice at last, sweet and low-pitched, the same well-remembered voice that had spoken to me in that unknown house of shadows.

The reason I do not give it is, first, because I have no desire to be made the object of idle curiosity or speculation, and secondly, although the explanation herein given will...

"I mean that if what you've told me is really the truth," I cried, agape in wonder, "then it is the most astounding thing I've ever heard of. Are you absolutely certain of the d...

"Oh, of course!" I exclaimed, taking out a card. It was the first I found within my cigarette-case, and was intentionally not my own. "Will you take this to your mistress, and a...

August was dusty and blazing in London, and I felt it sorely in Essex Street. The frontier war dragged on its weary length, as frontier wars always drag, and Dick was still unab...

At the moment when my eyes first fell upon the figure standing patiently in the booking-office awaiting me, I halted for a second in uncertainty. The silhouette before me was th...

"But hadn't you better go to your room and rest? It will surely do you good. I'll ring for Rayner, the valet." He spoke as though solicitous of my welfare.

"I very much regret that you should have thus misunderstood me. I thought when we met at Windermere you were quite of my opinion. You, however, appear to have grown tired after...

The weight of the inert body oppressed me, and in striving to extricate myself it slipped from the couch and slid to the ground; but such a feeling of dread overcame me that I r...

At five o'clock that same afternoon I alighted from a taxi before the _Langham Hotel_, and presenting my card at the bureau, inquired for Miss Anson. The clerk looked at me rath...

She hesitated, as though uncertain in what manner to place her project before me. She moved uneasily, and, rising, drew forth a large dispatch-box from its leathern case and pla...

"I wasn't aware that we had been very long," I answered, sinking into a low armchair near her. "If so, I'm sure I apologise. The fact is, that Mr Hickman was explaining a new sy...

"Then I will read it to you," he responded; and taking it from my hand, he repeated the words written there. Even then I doubted him, therefore I took the paper into the kitchen...

The man who abandons all hope is constantly haunted by fears. This is as strange as it is unjust, like much else in our everyday life. Even though there had returned to me all t...

What could I reply? To explain the truth was impossible, for I had pledged my honour to Edna to preserve the secret. Besides, I had no wish to horrify her by the strange story o...

Britten was, I immediately detected, one of those men whose well-feigned air of fussy sympathy, whose unruffled good humour, and whose quick perception enabled him to gauge to a...

He is a faint-hearted creature indeed who, while struggling along some dark lane of life, cannot, at least intermittently, extract some comfort to himself from the thought that...

The visit of this mysterious woman in the white lace veil--at that time a fashionable feminine adornment--was, I felt assured, more than a coincidence. That it had some connexio...

I was well aware of the suspicion which must fall upon me, for I knew there was blood upon my clothes, and that my story possessed a distinct air of improbability.

"My dear madam," I cried excitedly, "I haven't the slightest notion of your name. To the best of my knowledge, I've never had the pleasure of meeting you before this moment. Yet...

There was no response. Instinctively I knew that the woman I had thus disturbed was still present in that room wherein I spent so many lonely hours. Her startled cry was suffici...

Long and deeply I pondered over the Colonel's words. That he had some underlying motive in thus warning me against the woman by whom I had become so fascinated was vividly appar...

What she had revealed to me was startling, yet the one fact which caused me more apprehension than all others was the curious means by which she had discovered my whereabouts. I...

But only for an instant. She left my side for a moment, and from the sound that escaped her lips appeared to be struggling to open some means of egress from the place.