United States or Palestine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
You lose your friend George Talboys in rather a mysterious manner that is to say, that gentleman chooses to leave England without giving you due notice. What of that? You confess that he became an altered man after his wife's death. He grew eccentric and misanthropical; he affected an utter indifference as to what became of him.
Clara Talboys! Clara Talboys! Is there any merciful smile latent beneath the earnest light of your brown eyes?
"I thought from your message that you were going to Wildernsea." "I have been there." "Indeed! It was there that you made some discovery, then?" "It was," answered Robert. "You must remember, Miss Talboys that the sole ground upon which my suspicions rest is the identity of two individuals who have no apparent connection the identity of a person who is supposed to be dead with one who is living.
Talboys owned an extreme aversion to disorder, and was the terror of every domestic in his establishment. The windows winked and the flight of stone steps glared in the sunlight, the prim garden walks were so freshly graveled that they gave a sandy, gingery aspect to the place, reminding one unpleasantly of red hair.
But strange as the picture was, it could not have made any great impression on George Talboys, for he sat before it for about a quarter of an hour without uttering a word only staring blankly at the painted canvas, with the candlestick grasped in his strong right hand, and his left arm hanging loosely by his side. He sat so long in this attitude, that Robert turned round at last.
"Pray, when do you undertake to land us, Mr. Dodd?" inquired Mr. Talboys, superciliously. "Well, sir, if it does not blow any harder, about eight bells." "Eight bells? Why, that means midnight," exclaimed Talboys. "Wind and tide both dead against us," replied David, coolly. "Oh, Mr. Dodd, tell me the truth: is there any danger?" "Danger?
Talboys," answered Robert, gravely; "I remember it only too well. I have fatal reason to believe that you have no longer a son. I have bitter cause to think that he is dead." It may be that Mr. Talboys' complexion faded to a paler shade of buff as Robert said this; but he only elevated his bristling gray eyebrows and shook his head gently. "No," he said, "no, I assure you, no."
Harcourt Talboys listened with demonstrative attention, now and then interrupting the speaker to ask some magisterial kind of question. Clara Talboys never once lifted her face from her clasped hands. The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past eleven when Robert began his story. The clock struck twelve as he finished.
"I have shown her my cards," he thought, "but she has kept hers hidden from me. The mask that she wears is not to be plucked away. My uncle would rather think me mad than believe her guilty." The pale face of Clara Talboys that grave and earnest face, so different in its character to my lady's fragile beauty arose before him. "What a coward I am to think of myself or my own danger," he thought.
"It is all self-deception," gasped Fountain, in considerable agitation; "you girls are always deceiving yourselves: you none of you hate any man unless you love him. He tells me you have encouraged him of late. You had better tell me that is a lie." "A lie, uncle; what an expression! Mr. Talboys is a gentleman; he would not tell a falsehood, I presume."
Word Of The Day