It lay down in a hollow, rich with fine old timber and luxuriant pastures; and you came upon it through an avenue of limes, bordered on either side by meadows, over the high hedges of which the cattle...

He threw the end of his cigar into the water, and leaning his elbows upon the bulwarks, stared meditatively at the waves. “How wearisome they are,” he said; “blue and green, and opal; opal, and blue, ...

The same August sun which had gone down behind the waste of waters glimmered redly upon the broad face of the old clock over that ivy-covered archway which leads into the gardens of Audley Court. A fi...

Robert Audley was supposed to be a barrister. As a barrister was his name inscribed in the law-list; as a barrister he had chambers in Figtree Court, Temple; as a barrister he had eaten the allotted n...

Yes, there it was in black and white⁠—“Helen Talboys, aged 22.” When George told the governess on board the Argus that if he heard any evil tidings of his wife he should drop down dead, he spoke in pe...

When they returned to Lansdowne Cottage they found the old man had not yet come in, so they walked down to the beach to look for him. After a brief search they found him, sitting upon a heap of pebble...

The first year of George Talboys’ widowhood passed away, the deep band of crepe about his hat grew brown and dusty, and as the last burning day of another August faded out, he sat smoking cigars in th...

So the dinner at Audley Court was postponed, and Miss Alicia had to wait still longer for an introduction to the handsome young widower, Mr. George Talboys. I am afraid, if the real truth is to be tol...

Sir Michael was mistaken in his prophecy upon the weather. The storm did not hold off until next day, but burst with terrible fury over the village of Audley about half an hour before midnight. Robert...

When Robert Audley awoke he was surprised to see the fishing-rod lying on the bank, the line trailing idly in the water, and the float bobbing harmlessly up and down in the afternoon sunshine. The you...

Robert found Sir Michael and Lady Audley in the drawing-room. My lady was sitting on a music-stool before the grand piano, turning over the leaves of some new music. She twirled upon the revolving sea...

The September sunlight sparkled upon the fountain in the Temple Gardens when Robert Audley returned to Figtree Court early the following morning. He found the canaries singing in the pretty little roo...

Robert Audley left Southampton by the mail, and let himself into his chambers just as the dawn was creeping cold and gray into the solitary rooms, and the canaries were beginning to rustle their feath...

“Mr. George Talboys.⁠—Any person who has met this gentleman since the 7th inst., or who possesses any information respecting him subsequent to that date, will be liberally rewarded on communicating wi...

Upon a lowering morning late in November, with the yellow fog low upon the flat meadows, and the blinded cattle groping their way through the dim obscurity, and blundering stupidly against black and l...

The Christmas week was over, and one by one the country visitors dropped away from Audley Court. The fat squire and his wife abandoned the gray, tapestried chamber, and left the black-browed warriors ...

The little sitting-room into which Phoebe Marks ushered the baronet’s nephew was situated on the ground floor, and only separated by a lath-and-plaster partition from the little bar-parlor occupied by...

Eleven o’clock struck the next morning, and found Mr. Robert Audley still lounging over the well ordered little breakfast table, with one of his dogs at each side of his armchair, regarding him with w...

It was exactly five minutes past four as Mr. Robert Audley stepped out upon the platform at Shoreditch, and waited placidly until such time as his dogs and his portmanteau should be delivered up to th...

Among the packet of letters which Robert Audley had found in George’s trunk, there was one labeled with the name of the missing man’s father⁠—the father, who had never been too indulgent a friend to h...

“I am going to take your grandson away with me, Mr. Maldon,” Robert said gravely, as Mrs. Plowson retired with her young charge. The old man’s drunken imbecility was slowly clearing away like the heav...

Mr. Harcourt Talboys lived in a prim, square, redbrick mansion, within a mile of a little village called Grange Heath, in Dorsetshire. The prim, square, redbrick mansion stood in the center of prim, s...

Robert Audley found the driver asleep upon the box of his lumbering vehicle. He had been entertained with beer of so hard a nature as to induce temporary strangulation in the daring imbiber thereof, a...

Robert Audley did not return to Southampton, but took a ticket for the first up-train that left Wareham, and reached Waterloo Bridge an hour or two after dark. The snow, which had been hard and crisp ...

The dreary London January dragged its dull length slowly out. The last slender records of Christmas time were swept away, and Robert Audley still lingered in town⁠—still spent his lonely evenings in h...

Robert left Audley the next morning by an early train, and reached Shoreditch a little after nine o’clock. He did not return to his chambers, but called a cab and drove straight to Crescent Villas, We...

Robert Audley walked slowly through the leafless grove, under the bare and shadowless trees in the gray February atmosphere, thinking as he went of the discovery he had just made. “I have that in my p...

Upon his return from Wildernsea, Robert Audley found a letter from his Cousin Alicia, awaiting him at his chambers. “Papa is much better,” the young lady wrote, “and is very anxious to have you at the...

Robert Audley was loitering upon the broad grass-plat in front of the Court as the carriage containing my lady and Alicia drove under the archway, and drew up at the low turret-door. Mr. Audley presen...

Lady Audley went from the garden to the library, a pleasant, oak-paneled, homely apartment in which Sir Michael liked to sit reading or writing, or arranging the business of his estate with his stewar...

The division between Lady Audley and her stepdaughter had not become any narrower in the two months which had elapsed since the pleasant Christmas holiday time had been kept at Audley Court. There was...

My lady crushed the letter fiercely in her hand, and flung it from her into the flames. “If he stood before me now, and I could kill him,” she muttered in a strange, inward whisper, “I would do it⁠—I ...

It was very late the next morning when Lady Audley emerged from her dressing-room, exquisitely dressed in a morning costume of delicate muslin, delicate laces, and embroideries; but with a very pale f...

“Is there any room in which I can talk to you alone?” Robert Audley asked, as he looked dubiously round the hall. My lady only bowed her head in answer. She pushed open the door of the library, which ...

Robert Audley followed his uncle into the vestibule after Sir Michael had spoken those few quiet words which sounded the death-knell of his hope and love. Heaven knows how much the young man had feare...

My lady slept. Through that long winter night she slept soundly. Criminals have often so slept their last sleep upon earth; and have been found in the gray morning slumbering peacefully, by the jailer...

Robert Audley sat alone in the library with the physician’s letter upon the table before him, thinking of the work which was still to be done. The young barrister had constituted himself the denouncer...

No feverish sleeper traveling in a strange dream ever looked out more wonderingly upon a world that seemed unreal than Robert Audley, as he stared absently at the flat swamps and dismal poplars betwee...

Heaven knows whither Mr. Audley’s thoughts might have wandered had he not been startled by a sudden movement of the sick man, who raised himself up in his bed, and called to his mother. The old woman ...

Clara Talboys returned to Dorsetshire, to tell her father that his only son had sailed for Australia upon the 9th of September, and that it was most probable he yet lived, and would return to claim th...

Two years have passed since the May twilight in which Robert found his old friend; and Mr. Audley’s dream of a fairy cottage has been realized between Teddington Locks and Hampton Bridge, where, amid ...