United States or Venezuela ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
John Randolph's mind was made up in a moment what to do. Having cautiously followed the two men into the road, and ascertained that they were not lurking anywhere about "The Shrubbery," he hurried off at once to Hopeworth, and communicated what he had seen and heard to the police.
Randolph drew back in dismay, hearing the injured man's involuntary groan, but in another instant Mark had drawn a second pistol and fired. The ball grazed the other's forehead, and he staggered back stupefied. When he recovered himself Mark had disappeared, and never from that night was heard of or seen in Hopeworth or its neighbourhood.
At the end of this field was a stile leading into the highroad to Hopeworth. Here they paused, and were just about to part, when the sound of a horse's feet in rapid but very irregular motion arrested their attention. The animal and his rider soon came into view, the latter evidently keeping his seat with difficulty.
While gossip on this unlooked-for transformation was still flying in hot haste about Hopeworth and the neighbourhood, the families both at "The Firs" and "The Shrubbery" were greatly astonished one morning by an invitation to spend an evening at Mr Tankardew's.
It was a lovely morning in the September after the juvenile party, one of those mornings which combine the glow of summer with the richness of autumn. A picnic had been arranged to a celebrated hill about ten miles distant from Hopeworth. The Rothwells had been the originators, and had pressed Mary Franklin to join the party. Mrs Franklin had at first declined for her daughter.
He was rather tall, and apparently slightly made, as far as could be judged; for the wrappings in which he was clothed from head to foot concealed the build of his person. "Sorry to disturb you," he said, in a gentlemanly voice. "It is a terrible night, and I've missed my way. I ought to have been at Hopeworth by now, perhaps you can kindly direct me."
And yet Mr Tankardew was a man of education and a gentleman, and you knew it before you had been five minutes in his company. He was the owner of the house he lived in, on the outskirts of the small town of Hopeworth, and also of considerable property in the neighbourhood.
Several persons put questions to Molly about her master, but found it a very discouraging business, so they gave up the attempt as hopeless, and it remained an unexplained mystery why Mr Tankardew came to Hopeworth, and where he came from.
I let my house, and came over to Hopeworth, to be out of the way of everything and everybody that could remind me of the past. Yet, I could not forget. You noticed the vacant space in my sitting-room, where a picture should have been; that empty space reminded me of what might have been, had my wife, whose portrait should have been there, been a different wife to me. But light came at last.
Word Of The Day