Witness to the Deed

Such a chance did not come in Stratton's way again. "If I had drunk that when Guest came and interrupted me--when was it? Two years and more ago," sighed Stratton one night, "wh...

It was from no dread of the consequences likely to ensue that Malcolm Stratton paused with the burning paper in his hand. He knew that he had but to drop it into the clear fluid...

The staircase was very gloomy and quiet as Guest ascended, and he paused on the landing on finding Stratton's outer door shut, and after a few moments' hesitation, turned off to...

Land was not so valuable when Queen Charlotte's Road was built, and people who directed letters to their friends in that locality did not then place the letters "S.E." at the bo...

Night at The Foreland--and a dark night; the moon not due for hours, and when she rose not likely to be seen for the heavy clouds which blotted out the stars. Lights were out in...

Brettison leaped from his chair, and Stratton literally staggered back against a glass case so violently that a figure upon it toppled over and fell with a crash, as if emblemat...

"Yes," he said, "I am going now, but only for a few hours. I cannot live away from you. Only a fortnight now, Myra, and then good-bye to cold England. I take you to a land of be...

Disappointed in his visit to the inn, Guest went back to his own chambers, where his first act on reaching his room, with its lookout over the old rookery, was to take out his p...

Stratton rose slowly, and he was evidently confused and not quite able to grasp all that had been going on, till a pang from his injured shoulder spurred his brain.

No one by any stretch of the imagination could have called the admiral a good reader. In fact, a person might very well have been considered to be strictly within the limits of...

A key had always been visible, in old times, by the handle--a key about which Guest had bantered his friend and cut jokes in which the spirit-stand and Mrs Brade's name were bro...

Stratton went to his room, put out his light, and threw open the casement to sit and listen to the wash and rush of the coming tide. It was darker than ever, for the sea fog had...

"No, no, don't come with me," whispered Guest as he sprang toward Stratton's room, but Edie paid no heed to his words, and was close behind him as he passed through first one an...

Malcolm Stratton, F.Z.S., naturalist, a handsome, dark-complexioned man of eight-and-twenty, started and flushed like a girl as he hurriedly thrust the photograph he had been ap...

The next day was a busy one for Guest. He had to attend court, and in the afternoon he stole a visit to Miss Jerrold, where, by "the merest chance," he found Edie, who was also...

There was a feeling in the air along that dark shore which accorded well with Stratton's sensations. The solemn melancholy of the place was calming; and as he watched the sheet...

Blue sky, the bluest of blue water, margined with green and gold; gloriously rugged, steeply sloping pasture alps, dotted with picturesquely carved chalets, weatherworn by sun a...

"What the dickens does it all mean?" thought Guest wonderingly, as he followed into Stratton's chambers, with a strange feeling of expectancy exciting him. Something was going t...

"Look here," he said at last, taking his arm and drawing it through his own, "we can't talk freely in this place. Come out and have a cigar on the sands."

"I could not have been there a moment, and I must have glided down, or you would have heard me. I came to and for a moment could not understand why I was there. Then all came ba...

"Thanks. Ahem! a trifle now. I shall remember you when I leave. I spoke a little testily just this minute. A little out of order, waiter. Touch of my old fever, caught in the Ea...

The moment before these last words escaped from Brettison's lips Stratton had been sitting there with his elbows on the table, his face worn, haggard, and full of horror and dis...

"But I'll never believe that Malcolm Stratton could do wrong," whispered Edie, caressing and trying to soothe the sufferer as she clung to her side. "It couldn't have been that...

"Oh, it's you two again, is it?" said Miss Jerrold, in a tone of voice which might have been borrowed from her brother, as Stratton and Guest were shown up into her pretty littl...

"Yes, sir, it's done," said Mrs Brade, looking sadly in at the doorway on the left side of the fire; "and I hope it will turn out all right, but my experience of pipes is that t...

"Poor old chap!" said Percy Guest, with a laugh. "Married? Looked as if he was going to be hanged. Wonder whether I shall be as nervous and upset if--if--I ought to say when--it...

Even as Percy Guest rushed at his friend's door to bring one foot against the lock with all his might, he felt the futility of the proceeding. For he knew how solid the old oak...

There was a slight struggle, the sharp click of steel, and before Sir Mark could find words to express his rage and astonishment, Barron was being hurried out of the hall by two...

"Well, if ever two strange gentlemen did live in inns it's Mr Stratton and Mr Brettison," said Mrs Brade as she reluctantly went back to her lodge. "Nice state their rooms must...

Three steps back were sufficient--three steps taken suddenly in that profound darkness were enough, in the excitement of the moment, to make Guest completely lose what a nautica...

Malcolm Stratton started back with his eyes wild and his face ghastly, just as there was the faint sound of steps on the stone stairs, and directly after someone gave a long-con...

"I'll go," Myra said, drawing in her breath with a hiss; and then to herself, "If he despises me for the act, well, I must bear it, too-- while I am here."

Four weeks had passed since Malcolm Stratton's insane attempt--four weeks of an utterly prostrating illness from which he was slowly recovering, when, one morning, Guest entered...

Only a few frowns from the admiral and a severe shake of the head over their wine a day or two later, as, in obedience to a summons more than an invitation, Guest dined with him...

It was a slim, grey-haired, military looking man who listened to these words with the light of one of the lanterns full upon his face, which contracted into a heavy frown.

"Mr Barron with him," thought Stratton as the butler showed him into the dining room and closed the door. "Wonder what he is like. Oh! impossible. How easily a man can be jealous."

Then there was a short pause, and the rattle of the little copper-plate of the letter-box as if something had been dropped in; the babble of merry voices, and descending steps.

Edie rushed to her cousin where she lay prone on the carpet, her face turned toward the shaded lamp, which threw its soft light upon her face, and, even then, in her horror, the...

"Thank goodness!" said Guest to himself, as he moved slightly and saw that his companion appeared to be sleeping heavily; but as he rose Stratton followed his example, looking v...

"I saw them," he continued as he flung himself back in his seat, "the whole mob in the church sniggling with delight. Curse them! And that fellow, Stratton! If ever we stand fac...

Sir Mark proposed as a cure foreign travel, but Myra refused to go. Edie tried vainly to inveigle her into some distraction, and Guest spent a little fortune in concert and oper...

Stratton shuddered slightly, and for the moment felt that he ought to press on; but he knew that his words would have ten times the force with the admiral backed up by Brettison...

Time had crept on since the return of the Jerrolds, and by degrees the pain of the meeting between Myra and Stratton grew less, and the wound made that day began to heal.

The sound ceased on the instant as its cause passed through some hole in the panelling, and Stratton uttered a low gasping sigh, and caught hold of Guest's arm with a grip which...

Stratton opened the door without a word. Guest followed him in, to find himself in a plainly furnished sitting room, beyond which seemed to be the bedroom, while the two windows...

There was a strangely mingled feeling in his breast; one moment it was horror, the next disgust, that they two should join hands: she so young and beautiful, he prematurely aged...

As that horrible, rustling sound behind the wainscot was heard, the two hardened men in the old passage shrank away to door and end, while a cold sweat bedewed Guest's face, and...

Thinking over the events of the past nights, and the overwrought state of his friend's nerves, which had made him start in horror from his sleep at the noise made by the rats wh...

A year passed rapidly away, during which time Guest's visits were pretty constant to Benchers' Inn, or to that institution where the new curator seemed to have thrown himself wi...

Barron was back to dine at the admiral's that night, but the dinner was not a success. Myra was singularly cold and formal in her manner; Edie pleaded a headache; and the admira...

The crystals had dissolved in the glass as Stratton held it up and gazed fixedly at its contents, his face, stern and calm, dimly seen in the shadow, while the shape of the vess...

"Jules, you are a bad--a naughty!" cried Margot angrily. "You and your wife never tell me of what takes place while I sleep; you send me out with my patient, and never tell me h...

friend, I make no excuses to you now; but was I not sorely tried? Surely, few men in our generation have stood in such a dilemma. Can you feel surprised that, stricken from my b...

But as the words left his lips his whole manner changed. His face had lighted up at Brettison's announcement, for the knowledge that he was not answerable for the convict's deat...

For a few moments nothing was said, and Guest paid no heed to his companion, but stood bent forward listening for some exclamation of surprise uttered by Stratton, or a word fro...

Sir Mark awoke the next morning thoroughly convinced that he had been the victim of a scoundrel, but he kept his word, and did everything possible in the way of providing able l...