United States or Curaçao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I shall beg of you," said Stretton, trying to speak in as even a tone as hers, although the muscles round his lips quivered once or twice and made utterance somewhat difficult, "I shall beg of you to tell what I have said to Mr. Heron only; you and he will perhaps kindly guard my secret. I wish I could be more frank; but it is impossible.
With the woman to whom his estate has passed Miss Murray. He means to marry her, and in that way to get back the estate which, by his own mad folly, he has forfeited." "Is this true?" said Dino, slowly. He fixed his penetrating dark eyes upon Hugo as he spoke, and turned a little pale. "And does this lady this Miss Murray know who he is? For I hear that he calls himself Stretton in her house.
He followed the servant, whom he found in waiting for him a stolid, impenetrable-looking Englishman, who led the way to an entrance into the garden of the villa an entrance which Stretton did not know. "Is your master in the garden? Does he wish me to come this way?" he asked, rather sharply. The stolid servant bowed his head.
Stretton had heard that there were to be guests at dinner, and, keeping up his character as a shy man, declined to be present.
"Perhaps, Miss Tennison, you knew him under some other name," I said, and then proceeded to describe minutely the handsome, rather foreign-looking man who had bribed me to give that certificate of death. "Have you an uncle?" I asked presently, recollecting that the man at Stretton Street had declared the victim to be his niece. "I have an uncle my mother's brother he lives in Liverpool."
The air once played, the composer cast his violin upon the stage beneath his feet and trampled it, hurled the bow from him, and with one cry, eloquent of agony and rage, turned and dashed past his companion, and, tumbling through the dark and unaccustomed ways, reached the street. Carl followed him and caught him up. 'What is it, Stretton?
All four stood silent, and footsteps came leisurely up the stone stairs, and were heard very distinctly in the stillness. The door had been left open, but one of the new-comers stopped to tap at it. 'Come in, cried Carl, ready to welcome any diversion. A red face and a grey head came round the door. 'Does Mr. Stretton ? Oh! Chris, my boy, how are you? No other a person than Barbara's uncle.
He had been ill; he seemed to be in trouble, and we were sorry for him; and I do not think that my uncle made a mistake in taking him." "And I," said Percival, with an edge in his voice, "think that he made a very great mistake." "Why?" "Why?" he repeated, with a short, savage laugh. "I shall not tell you why." "Do you know anything against Mr. Stretton?" "Yes." "What, Percival?"
"Yes," said Hugo, looking at him restlessly out of his long, dark eyes. "Had you any idea that Stretton was not his real name?" Hugo paused before he replied. "It is rather an odd question, certainly," he said, with a temporising smile. "May I ask what you want to know for?" "I was told that he came to the house under a feigned name: that's all." "Who told you so?" "Oh, a person who knew him."
After the first greetings were over he sank into an embarrassed silence, played with his watch-chain and his eye-glass, and, at last, burst somewhat abruptly into the subject upon which he had really come to speak. "Mr. Stretton," he said, "I trust that you will excuse me if I am taking a liberty; but the fact is, you mentioned to me yesterday that you thought of taking pupils "
Word Of The Day