Vain oblations

As I was with Saxe during the four most desperate weeks of his life, I think I may say that I knew him better than any one else. Those were also the four most articulate weeks,...

Outside the hut, her back to the setting sun, stood the woman. Saxe had of course known that Mary would be dressed like a native; but this figure staggered him. She was half nak...

“There’s no point in saying it isn’t rum, because it is,” he murmured to himself. “And _here_,” he added, looking about. There was no moral support in those crimson walls, those...

Mrs. Wayne rose, drew the crimson curtain to one side, and looked out. It was a moment before she spoke, and as she spoke she sat down again with helpless grace.

I found, as I say, that I could not write plays. My wife and I went abroad for some years. We saw Upcher act once in London, but I didn’t even look him up. That gives you the me...

I did not go to bed at once. How should I have done that? I was still listening for that scream, that pistol-shot. Nothing came. I remember that, after an hour, I found it all r...

One morning I was leaving my sitting-room to go down to Lithway’s library. The door of the room faced the staircase to the third story, and as I came out I could always see, dir...

“Oh, dear, no!” He said it rather hastily. “But you were quite right at the time. I ought to have gone out there ten years ago. Women never know how to manage money.”

I set down my glass quickly. I had drunk most of the whiskey, and therefore none of it was spilled. Chalmers married! Why--why--we knew all about him, from cradle to laboratory;...

“I can’t tell you how I came to hate the Portuguese before we left that mean little hole. You laughed at me once for rending Blakely to shreds over Camoëns. I’ve read Camoëns in...

“At the instant I didn’t place him--naturally! But as soon as she turned her face to me, I did. Only one thing could have induced that look of horror--horror in every strained f...

“That particular interior wasn’t much good--eternal rice-fields, and little villages, one just like another, full of little people. The vegetation was something you couldn’t dre...

For the sake of moral values I ought to wish, I suppose, that Paramore had been a more conspicuous figure. There is moral significance in the true tale of Paramore--the tale whi...

“Bad luck--nothing else. He went as far as he could. But he was no seasoned traveller, you know. He just came to grief, as any man might, there in the wilderness. The stars in t...

“His lips were straining to ask me to see to it that she didn’t, but he controlled them. That--as much as anything--is why I’m here with you now. It was more than decent of him;...