Winding Paths

It was rather a curious circumstance, that on the occasion of Lorraine’s dinner-party, Alymer Hermon was the first to notice an indefinable change in Hal. To the others she was...

About the time that the three in the Chelsea flat were leave-taking, a stream of women-clerks in the long passages of the General Post Office proclaimed that pressure of work ha...

The second interview, however, by a mere coincidence, took place at Lorraine’s flat. She was walking leisurely down Sloane Street one afternoon, after visiting her milliner’s, w...

When Hal went to tell Lorraine of her adventure she found her a victim of the prevailing malady, kept indoors two days with influenza. She was not in bed, but lying on a sofa, b...

It was force of habit chiefly that caused Lorraine, as a rule, to sleep long and late on Sunday mornings; and it was greatly to her advantage that for so many months, and even y...

Dudley hardly knew, himself, why he spoke diffidently about his plans for Sunday, and why he did not tell Hal outright that he was taking Doris Hayward to a picnic at Marlow, gi...

It will be remembered, perhaps, that an occasion has already occured when Hal had cause to congratulate herself upon the possession of a cousin, named Dick, who acted as an anti...

When Hal reached her room she sat down on the bed in the dark, and stared at the dim square of the window. She was feeling stunned, and as if her brain would not work properly....

“Dick Bruce will write an astounding, weird novel, and bound into fame,” Lorraine had remarked to her companion, and away somewhere down in Kent, an hour or so earlier, Dick had...

“Ah, I can’t pass that. You were never even remotely in sight of falling in love with me. And you know what Kipling says: ‘Love’s like line-work; you can’t stand still, you must...

When Hall sat on the side of her bed, brushing her hair and meditating on her irritation, she had not misjudged when she anticipated great enjoyment from an afternoon run with h...

It was a little over two years later that the crash came. There was first a commonplace, sordid tale of bickering and quarrelling, with passionate jealousy on the part of the mi...

The first time Sir Edwin rang up the newspaper office after the memorable Sunday it happened that Hal had gone into the country to report an opening ceremony, graced by Royalty,...

It would seem sometimes that Life has a way of keeping the balance between joy and pain, by making that which is a source of deepest sorrow to one the unlooked-for instrument of...

It was Hal also who filled Dudley’s thoughts as he made his way homeward. In her attitude to his engagement he was afraid she was going to personate what is known as a “tough nu...

“Because it is rather a big matter. You have sometimes said you would like to see the horns and trophies I brought back from my shooting-trip in Canada. Come and see them this e...

Things happened with surprising quickness, and each happening was of that particular order which presents itself enshrouded in gloom, and, with a pitilessness which is almost wa...

There were several interesting points about Hal Pritchard and Lorraine Vivian, but perhaps the most striking was their friendship for each other. From two wide-apart extremes th...

It was not difficult for Alymer to persuade himself that a little diplomacy on his part would probably assuage his aunt’s wish to upset his friendship, and incidentally allay hi...

It was there Hal found her. By the merest chance she had run up to the flat at her midday hour, to ask a question about Sir Edwin Crathie, and a rumour concerning him that she f...

She was quite unable to act, and spent a great deal of time on her sofa near the window, where she could just distinguish the river through the trees. It seemed to have a growin...

Hal’s uneasiness concerning Lorraine and Alymer Hermon was swallowed up almost immediately on Lorraine’s return, by a sudden alarming change in Basil Hayward. The first time she...

Lorraine had not the smallest idea of what was coming upon her. She knew perfectly well herself that it would be most unwise for a rising young barrister to get talked about wit...

Lorraine was not able to see Hal, but she talked to her on the telephone, and told her she was going into the country at once, and Alymer was coming down for the weekend. “We wo...

For a few years after that particular disagreement nothing of special note happened. Hal got quickly through her course of shorthand and typewriting and became Mr. Elliott’s pri...

Sir Edwin Crathie had come to the front very rapidly under the auspices of the Liberal Government. Without having any special worth, he was sufficiently brilliant and unscrupulo...

If Dudley Pritchard’s imagination did not actually picture the lurid and violent descent Hal suggested, it certainly did view with the utmost alarm his lively young sister’s fri...

When Hal came back from America and heard about Lorraine’s marriage, it was a great shock to her. At first she could hardly bring herself to believe it at all. Nothing thoroughl...

When Hal and her cousin emerged from the office the following Wednesday evening, the first thing Hal saw was Sir Edwin’s motor, and Sir Edwin himself standing waiting for her. A...

“Oh, Dudley, such fun!” she began, “Lorraine has got the royal box for me for Thursday evening. We must have a little dinner-party. Who shall we take? It holds four comfortably,...

What Lorraine exactly meant by full armour she did not quite know, but it might very well have been taken to mean the shining armour of her own best loveliness. Certainly after...

The following afternoon when Hal left the office about half-past four she saw a motor she recognised a little way down the street, and was almost immediately accosted by Sir Edw...

When Hal entered the sitting-room and met Dudley’s eyes she felt, as she afterwards described it to Lorraine, that she was in for it. Yet it was not so very late, barely half-pa...

Alymer knew directly he entered the house, and saw his mother, that something had upset her, but he did not associate it with Lorraine, and kissed her with his usual warm affect...

On her way home Hal stopped the taxi and bought an evening paper. When she got it, however, she found Dudley there, so she merely held it under her cloak.

“What a gossip you two have been having!” Basil said, and, seeing the laughter in Hal’s eyes, he added, “has G been telling you some of her amazing theories, or tearing the exis...

The moment he had spoken his decision she had turned to him with a swift expression of approval, but, for the rest, her manner was somewhat curt and business-like, and showed li...

A good deal to her amusement, she found the gaunt spinster knitting babies’ socks, with a basket containing several completed pairs beside her. She picked a pair up, and said wi...

The winter months passed more or less uneventfully and pleasantly. The case in which Hermon had held his first brief, though in only a very secondary position, was rather splend...

It is necessary to take but a cursory glance at the events that followed. Life flowed smoothly enough in its way, but it flowed towards higher and greater achievements for some,...

When Hermon was finding fault with Hal’s friendship for Sir Edwin Crathie, it had not apparently occured to him that his own friends and relations were likely enough to take pre...

In the evening came the party at Dick Bruce’s home, and it was necessary, she knew, to thrust all recollection of Sir Edwin aside, in order to give rise to no questioning and ap...

When Hal first saw her old friend she was almost too shocked for words at the swift change in her. Lorraine tried hard to smile cheerfully, but she could not hide any longer fro...

All through the next day, while motoring with her cousin Dick Bruce, Hal made a valiant effort to appear exactly as usual; but all the fresh spring countryside now seemed to moc...

After Hal had left, Lorraine sank into a stupor from weakness, and remained thus until towards evening. Then she revived, and seemed to comprehend better all that had happened;...

He came in while she was still trying to compose herself for the struggle she anticipated; and because she had not yet made any headway, he saw at once that something alarming h...