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Updated: June 13, 2025
And as the words fell from my lips Lady Tressidy entered the room. She had finished superintending her packing, and the sight of her was a sudden sharp reminder that next day she would take Karine away. An Extra Special
"If He Had Committed a Crime" Karine stood, as I said, perhaps a couple of yards distant from her friends, and their backs, at the present moment, were more than half turned to her. It would be just possible for me to speak to her, without being observed by them, if I were both extraordinarily cautious and lucky.
But he and Karine Cunningham would in all probability be man and wife at the end of six weeks; and six weeks was, after all, but a short space in which to tear the mask from so preternaturally clever a scoundrel. Knowing nothing, yet suspecting much with haunting vagueness, it seemed a horrible desecration to me that the beautiful, gentle girl should be given up to Wildred.
If any reason existed, however, why the door should not be opened, it would be easy to understand how and why the caretaker might be suddenly afflicted with an inability to hear. Instead of being plunged into discouragement, an ever-kindling fire of rage mounted within me. Rather than go away ignorant as to whether Karine was hidden in this hateful house or not, I would force an entrance.
I was astonished at this piece of information, for I was absolutely sure that it was Karine whose shining halo of hair and white gown I had seen in that rosy space between the window curtains. Of course the footman might honestly believe that she was not at home; but I did not mean lightly to abandon the chance of a few words with her. "I think you are mistaken about that," I boldly said.
I thought he had merely been willing to take the trouble that he might get the more work out of me when he wanted it, though what the work was for which he had brought me to England I didn't yet know. "After that first meeting with Karine I had given Wildred my word never to try and see her again; now I understand why.
My impulse was to slip a couple of sovereigns into his palm, and insist that he should ascertain if Miss Cunningham were not after all at home, for I was beginning to be suspicious of a plot to thwart me. If such an one existed I could not think that Karine had been a party to it, for though of course she could not care to see me, in at all the same way in which I yearned for a sight of her sweet face, I believed that she would not wish me to be sent away from the house humiliated. My hand was moving toward my pocket, when suddenly I reconsidered. If I took such strong measures to secure a tête-
"Better not ask; the question doesn't concern you. She will simply become familiarised with the secrets of the House by the Lock in a manner upon which she didn't count, that's all." "I had never pictured Satan himself so cruel, so horrible as you," cried Karine. "I thank heaven, now that I know through this wretched woman what you really are, that not I, but she is your wife!"
The crystal had been cracked across in the fall, but the delicately painted ivory miniature within was intact, and I gave a slight exclamation as I saw that it represented Karine Cunningham. If I had been surprised to see her picture in the "studio" at the House by the Lock, I was doubly surprised to see it in a locket worn by a young desperado on the other side of the world.
I admire you more than any woman on earth, for you are certainly the most beautiful, and your coldness to a man of my temperament has only added to your attractions as a girl. As a married woman it would have been different. I meant to make you love me; and even now, Karine, what has happened that need change anything between us?
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