“No room!⁠—Full up!” He banged the door in my face. That was the final blow. To have tramped about all day looking for work; to have begged even for a job which would give me money enough to buy a lit...

“No room!⁠—Full up!” He banged the door in my face. That was the final blow. To have tramped about all day looking for work; to have begged even for a job which would give me money enough to buy a lit...

I realised, and, so to speak, mentally photographed all the little details of the house in front of which I was standing with what almost amounted to a gleam of preternatural perception. An instant be...

The illumination which instantly followed was unexpected. It startled me, causing a moment’s check, from which I was just recovering when a voice said, “Keep still!” There was a quality in the voice w...

I knew that the light went out. For not the least singular, nor, indeed, the least distressing part of my condition was the fact that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I never once lost conscio...

That the man in the bed was the one whom, to my cost, I had suffered myself to stumble on the night before, there could, of course, not be the faintest doubt. And yet, directly I saw him, I recognised...

I went to the window; I drew up the blind, unlatching the sash, I threw it open; and clad, or, rather, unclad as I was, I clambered through it into the open air. I was not only incapable of resistance...

He was in evening dress. He carried a small portfolio in his left hand. If the discovery of my presence startled him, as it could scarcely have failed to do, he allowed no sign of surprise to escape h...

Whether anyone pursued I cannot say. I have some dim recollection, as I came out of the room, of women being huddled against the wall upon the landing, and of their screaming as I went past. But wheth...

I pulled up sharply⁠—as if a brake had been suddenly, and even mercilessly, applied to bring me to a standstill. In front of the window I stood shivering. A shower had recently commenced⁠—the falling ...

It was after our second waltz I did it. In the usual quiet corner⁠—which, that time, was in the shadow of a palm in the hall. Before I had got into my stride she checked me⁠—touching my sleeve with he...

It was after our second waltz I did it. In the usual quiet corner⁠—which, that time, was in the shadow of a palm in the hall. Before I had got into my stride she checked me⁠—touching my sleeve with he...

The weather out of doors was in tune with my frame of mind⁠—I was in a deuce of a temper, and it was a deuce of a night. A keen northeast wind, warranted to take the skin right off you, was playing ca...

All through the night, waking and sleeping, and in my dreams, I wondered what Marjorie could see in him! In those same dreams I satisfied myself that she could, and did, see nothing in him, but everyt...

“I wonder what that nice-looking beggar really means, and who he happens to be?” That was what I said to myself when I returned to the laboratory. “If it is true that, now and again, Providence does w...

That night was the Duchess of Datchet’s ball⁠—the first person I saw as I entered the dancing-room was Dora Grayling. I went straight up to her. “Miss Grayling, I behaved very badly to you last night,...

The House was full. Percy and I went upstairs⁠—to the gallery which is theoretically supposed to be reserved for what are called “distinguished strangers,”⁠—those curious animals. Trumperton was up, h...

I bore him off to supper at the Helicon. All the way in the cab he was trying to tell me the story of how he proposed to Marjorie⁠—and he was very far from being through with it when we reached the cl...

The passage into the yard from the electrically lit laboratory was a passage from brilliancy to gloom. The shrouded figure, standing in the shadow, was like some object in a dream. My own senses reele...

The laboratory door was closed. The stranger was standing a foot or two away from it. I was further within the room, and was subjecting him to as keen a scrutiny as circumstances permitted. Beyond dou...

Dora Grayling stood in the doorway. “I told your servant he need not trouble to show me in⁠—and I’ve come without my aunt. I hope I’m not intruding.” She was⁠—confoundedly; and it was on the tip of my...

Mr. Lindon was excited⁠—there is no mistaking it when he is, because with him excitement means perspiration, and as soon as he was out of the cab he took off his hat and began to wipe the lining. “Ath...

“Sydney!” she cried, “I’m so glad that I can see you!” She might be⁠—but, at that moment, I could scarcely assert that I was a sharer of her joy. “I told you that if trouble overtook me I should come ...

To have received the cut discourteous from his future father-in-law might have been the most commonplace of incidents⁠—Lessingham evinced not a trace of discomposure. So far as I could judge, he took ...

I am the happiest woman in the world! I wonder how many women have said that of themselves in their time⁠—but I am. Paul has told me that he loves me. How long I have made inward confession of my love...

I am the happiest woman in the world! I wonder how many women have said that of themselves in their time⁠—but I am. Paul has told me that he loves me. How long I have made inward confession of my love...

Sydney Atherton has asked me to be his wife. It is not only annoying; worse, it is absurd. This is the result of Paul’s wish that our engagement should not be announced. He is afraid of papa;⁠—not rea...

This morning I had an adventure. I was in the breakfast-room. Papa, as usual, was late for breakfast, and I was wondering whether I should begin without him, when, chancing to look round, something ca...

Paul has stormed the House of Commons with one of the greatest speeches which even he has delivered, and I have quarrelled with papa. And, also, I have very nearly quarrelled with Sydney. Sydney’s lit...

When I left papa⁠—or, rather, when papa had driven me from him⁠—I went straight to the man whom I had found in the street. It was late, and I was feeling both tired and worried, so that I only thought...

I have been anticipating for some weeks past, that things would become exciting⁠—and they have. But hardly in the way which I foresaw. It is the old story of the unexpected happening. Suddenly events ...

Mr. Holt looked as if he was in somebody else’s garments. He was so thin, and worn, and wasted, that the suit of clothes which one of the men had lent him hung upon him as on a scarecrow. I was almost...

I was standing in the middle of the room, Sydney was between the door and me; Mr. Holt was in the hall, just outside the doorway, in which he, so to speak, was framed. As Sydney advanced towards him h...

My first impulse, after Sydney’s disappearance, was to laugh. Why should he display anxiety on my behalf merely because I was to be the sole occupant of an otherwise empty house for a few minutes more...

On the afternoon of Friday, June 2, 18⁠—, I was entering in my casebook some memoranda having reference to the very curious matter of the Duchess of Datchet’s Deed-box. It was about two o’clock. Andre...

On the afternoon of Friday, June 2, 18⁠—, I was entering in my casebook some memoranda having reference to the very curious matter of the Duchess of Datchet’s Deed-box. It was about two o’clock. Andre...

He began in accents which halted not a little. By degrees his voice grew firmer. Words came from him with greater fluency. “I am not yet forty. So when I tell you that twenty years ago I was a mere yo...

“How I reached the open air I cannot tell you⁠—I do not know. I have a confused recollection of rushing through vaulted passages, through endless corridors, of trampling over people who tried to arres...

Atherton did not wait to see who might or might not be present, but, without even pausing to take breath, he broke into full cry on the instant⁠—as is occasionally his wont. “Champnell!⁠—Thank goodnes...

Three in a hansom cab is not, under all circumstances, the most comfortable method of conveyance⁠—when one of the trio happens to be Sydney Atherton in one of his “moments of excitement” it is distinc...

The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap “villa” in an unfinished cheap neighbourhood⁠—the whole place a living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder. Atherton leaped out on to the...

It was a woman’s clothing, beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhow⁠—as if the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate hurry. An entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen, corse...

That the house over the way was tenanted was plain to all the world⁠—at least one occupant sat gazing through the window of the first floor front room. An old woman in a cap⁠—one of those large old-fa...

As Miss Coleman had paused, as if her narrative was approaching a conclusion, I judged it expedient to make an attempt to bring the record as quickly as possible up to date. “I take it, Miss Coleman, ...

Miss Coleman, getting up in a fluster, went hurrying to the door. “I won’t have that young man in my house. I won’t have him! Don’t let him dare to put his nose across my doorstep.” I endeavoured to a...

I turned towards the booking-office on the main departure platform. As I went, the chief platform inspector, George Bellingham, with whom I had some acquaintance, came out of his office. I stopped him...

It is something of a drive from Waterloo to Limehouse⁠—it seems longer when all your nerves are tingling with anxiety to reach your journey’s end; and the cab I had hit upon proved to be not the faste...

The Inspector spoke to me. “If what the boy says is correct it sounds as if the person whom you are seeking may have had a finger in the pie.” I was of the same opinion, as, apparently, were Lessingha...

Mrs. Henderson put her hands under her apron and smirked. “Well, Mr. Phillips, it do sound strange to ’ear you talkin’ to me like that. Anybody’d think I’d done something as I didn’t ought to ’a’ done...

As we were leaving the house a constable gave the Inspector a note. Having read it he passed it to me. It was from the local office. “Message received that an Arab with a big bundle on his head has be...

I moved to the stranger who was holding the lamp. He was in official uniform. “Are you the guard of the 12:00 out from St. Pancras?” “I am.” “Where’s your train? What’s happened?” “As for where it is,...

It is several years since I bore my part in the events which I have rapidly sketched⁠—or I should not have felt justified in giving them publicity. Exactly how many years, for reasons which should be ...