United States or Dominica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I know little," he replied; "except that Brathland was suddenly attacked by appendicitis two nights ago and that an operation was immediately performed " "Friday night!" cried Mrs. Kaye. "Why he spent an hour with me that afternoon, and was to dine with Lord Zeal and Lord Raglin and half a dozen other men that night they all came up to London to talk over one of Sir Cadge Vanneck's mines.
They were all sober enough, and Brathland looked the more of a beast by contrast. "I took a chair opposite him and ordered my thoughts to arrange themselves in phrases that should pierce his mental hide and wither the very roots of his self-esteem his vanity was the one big thing about him. But he took his doom into his own hands and built it up like a house of cards.
"I thought to say good-bye without letting you know it isn't possible that he told you he intended to kill himself?" "He told me a good deal more. He had shot Brathland. Murdered him, in plain English. You may fancy the night I had with him." Isabel stared up at him, the radiance gone from her face. "And you have been carrying that about in addition to everything else?"
"I don't know that that fact alone would make life insupportable. But there are other and sufficient reasons. I shall never get the hideous sight of Brathland as he doubled up, and his horrid gurgling shriek, out of my mind this side of the grave. And I am practically cleaned out. You know how much I have left of my mother's property! It barely covers what I paid out to-day.
We don't call every tuppeny-hapenny villa inhabited by a nobleman a 'castle' as they do in Germany and Austria. Well that clever little panther! I'd like to pack her into one of her own epigrams and bury her alive. I know she was as good as engaged to Brathland.
He walked over to the table and mixed two tumblers of whiskey-and-soda, wondering why he had not thought of it before. They drank without haste, and then Gwynne took the chair opposite Zeal's. "Tell me all about it," he said. "Brathland and I had not been friends for some years. He was a bounder, and an ass in the bargain.
But in a moment a subject was started that entirely diverted his mind and upset the lively tenor of the breakfast-table. "Where is Lorcutt?" asked some one, abruptly, referring to a brother of Lord Brathland, who had lost heavily and cheerfully at Bridge the night before. Isabel's eyes happened to have wandered to the face of the man opposite. To her surprise it became livid.
Why I remember you were to be there. Surely Lord Brathland was well then?" "He was looking very seedy when he came in. I happened to sit next to him told him he ought to go home. Finally he got so bad he decided that he would, and as he left the table he fainted. Several of us saw him to bed. He said he didn't want his family fidgeting him, and the surgeon said he would be all right in a few days.
"We were not long discussing the mine threadbare, for we did not know enough about it to enlarge into any picturesque details, and the agent, who had seen each of us separately, was not present. Raglin read a personal letter from Vanneck, and Brathland another from Dick.
He turned instantly to Gwynne, however, and said: "I should have told you I quite forgot he asked me to make his excuses. He got a telegram bad news Bratty is dead." Involuntarily Isabel glanced at Mrs. Kaye; Flora had hinted to her of the lady's designs. That face for once was ghastly and unmasked, but the eyes were not glittering with grief. "Impossible!" she cried, sharply. "Lord Brathland?
Word Of The Day