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diff --git a/41453-h/41453-h.htm b/41453-h/41453-h.htm index 8324dce..e421274 100644 --- a/41453-h/41453-h.htm +++ b/41453-h/41453-h.htm @@ -1,13 +1,13 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> <head> -<title>The Mysterious Mr Miller</title> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> -<meta name="Title" content="The Mysterious Mr Miller" /> -<meta name="Description" content="novel" /> -<meta name="Subject" content="prose_classic" /> -<meta name="Author" content="Queux, William Le" /> -<style type="text/css"> +<title>The Mysterious Mr Miller | Project Gutenberg</title> +<meta charset="utf-8"> +<meta name="Title" content="The Mysterious Mr Miller" > +<meta name="Description" content="novel" > +<meta name="Subject" content="prose_classic" > +<meta name="Author" content="Queux, William Le" > +<style> BODY { font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; color : #000000; @@ -233,10 +233,10 @@ font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; <div class="dochead"> <h2 class="author">William Le Queux</h2> <h2 class="title">"The Mysterious Mr. Miller"</h2> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap01"></a> +<a id="chap01"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter One.</h3> <h4 class="event">A Stranger in Shepherd’s Bush.</h4> <p class="narrative">“Why! Look! he’s dead, doctor!” I gasped, standing aghast.</p> @@ -301,11 +301,11 @@ font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; <p class="narrative">But he only shook his head and clenched his even white teeth.</p> <p class="narrative">“No,” he said, with a fierce imprecation in Italian. “Mine is a secret—her secret—a secret that I have kept until now—a secret that none shall know!”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap02"></a> +<a id="chap02"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Two.</h3> <h4 class="event">Touches a Woman’s Honour.</h4> <p class="narrative">Tulloch left half an hour later, and Sammy, whose curiosity had been aroused concerning the foreigner, entered the room and inquired after the patient.</p> @@ -386,11 +386,11 @@ font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; <p class="narrative">I stood before her stunned.</p> <p class="narrative">What could I reply? What would you have replied in such circumstances?</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap03"></a> +<a id="chap03"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Three.</h3> <h4 class="event">Gives some Explanations.</h4> <p class="narrative">Her voice was soft and refined. She was evidently a lady.</p> @@ -461,11 +461,11 @@ font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; <p class="narrative">“Of course not. Had he lived the truth would have been revealed, and he would have dragged out his remaining days in a convict prison. I know that truth—a strange and startling one—a truth which would assuredly amaze and astound you. But he is dead,” she added, “and though he refused to give me back my honour and my life I will never seek a vendetta upon one whom the Avenger has already claimed—one whom God Himself has justly judged.”</p> <p class="narrative">And together we turned, and left the silent chamber wherein lay the remains of the man who was a mystery.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap04"></a> +<a id="chap04"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Four.</h3> <h4 class="event">Arouses Certain Suspicions.</h4> <p class="narrative">Sammy chanced to be out, therefore I conducted her to our cosy little sitting-room at the back of the house on the first floor, and after a few minutes she had so far recovered from the shock of seeing her dead enemy that she seated herself and allowed me to talk further to her.</p> @@ -533,11 +533,11 @@ font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; <p class="narrative">After I had bowed farewell and she had descended the steps, I closed the door, and was returning along the hall when suddenly Sammy emerged from the dining-room, where he had evidently been standing, and facing me with a strange, serious expression upon his features, such as I had never seen there before, asked:—</p> <p class="narrative">“Godfrey! what’s that woman doing here—in this house? Do you know who she is? By Jove, you don’t, that’s certain, otherwise you would never have let her cross this threshold. Why has she dared to come here?”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap05"></a> +<a id="chap05"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Five.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Villa Du Lac.</h4> <p class="narrative">“Look here, Sammy!” I exclaimed, when we were together in our little den a few minutes later, “what’s the good of beating about the bush? Why don’t you tell me straight out what you have against her?”</p> @@ -583,11 +583,11 @@ font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; <p class="narrative">“But are you sure she is the same?” I asked. “You admit that she has changed.”</p> <p class="narrative">“She has. She’s grown more beautiful, but she is the same, my dear fellow—the same. Is it any wonder that I hate her?”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap06"></a> +<a id="chap06"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Six.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Truth about the Stranger.</h4> <p class="narrative">I sat staring at my friend, unable to utter a word.</p> @@ -622,11 +622,11 @@ font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; <p class="narrative">My companions watched my change of countenance in wonder. And well, indeed, they might, for it was the appeal of a desperate woman, a letter that revealed to me an amazing truth—a letter signed “Lucie.”</p> <p class="narrative">And when I had finished reading it, I sat there, staring as the written lines danced before my eyes, amazed, unable to utter a single word in response to their questions.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap07"></a> +<a id="chap07"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Seven.</h3> <h4 class="event">Describes some Confidential Documents.</h4> <p class="narrative">I had no right to divulge the girl’s secret to my two companions. I recognised this in an instant.</p> @@ -671,16 +671,16 @@ font-family : "Verdana", sans-serif; <p class="narrative">Headed “<i>Amministrazione di Pubblica Sicurezza</i>” and bearing the number 28,280, it was, I saw, the Italian police record regarding an Englishman named James Harding Miller, son of William Miller, born at Studland, in Dorsetshire, widower, and resident in Rome. After the name and the statement that he was sometimes known as Milner, a minute description was given of the person whom the record concerned, and in that column headed “Connotati,” or personal appearance, was the following:—</p> <blockquote> <p class="bqv"> -Statura: alto.<br /> -Corporature: secco.<br /> -Colorito: bruno.<br /> -Capelli: castagna.<br /> -Barba: c.<br /> -Occhi: c.<br /> -Naso: greco.<br /> -Bocca: reg.<br /> -Fronte: guista.<br /> -Segni: porta lenti.<br /> +Statura: alto.<br > +Corporature: secco.<br > +Colorito: bruno.<br > +Capelli: castagna.<br > +Barba: c.<br > +Occhi: c.<br > +Naso: greco.<br > +Bocca: reg.<br > +Fronte: guista.<br > +Segni: porta lenti.<br > </p> </blockquote> <p class="narrative">The meaning of this was that Mr Milner, or Miller, was tall of stature, dark complexion, chestnut beard, hair and eyes, Greek nose, and that he habitually wore pince-nez. In fact upon the back of the document were pasted four photographs, taken in different positions, and probably by different photographers.</p> @@ -690,11 +690,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">After reading that I was compelled to accept the truth of Sammy’s statement. The man Miller had evidently plotted and obtained the securities in the young Chilian’s despatch-box.</p> <p class="narrative">Yet had Lucie, I wondered, any knowledge of that dastardly conspiracy which had ended in a tragedy?</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap08"></a> +<a id="chap08"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Eight.</h3> <h4 class="event">“The Mysterious Mr Miller.”</h4> <p class="narrative">On the following day, about noon, I took a cab to the Italian Embassy, that fine stone-built mansion in Grosvenor Square.</p> @@ -744,11 +744,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">I started when he introduced himself.</p> <p class="narrative">I was actually face to face with the ingenious scoundrel whom Sammy had denounced, and whom the Italian police so strongly suspected to be the leader of one of the cleverest gangs of malefactors in Europe.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap09"></a> +<a id="chap09"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Nine.</h3> <h4 class="event">Contains a Surprise.</h4> <p class="narrative">James Harding Miller was a thoroughgoing cosmopolitan of most gentlemanly exterior. His grey face was deeply lined and bore that curious washed-out look of a man who had lived many years in a hot climate. After ten years or so the fiery Italian sun no longer tans the face of the northerner, but on the contrary his hair goes prematurely grey, and each year as the burning summer comes he is less able to withstand the heat of the “lion” days. His leanness, his foreign-cut clothes, and the slight gesticulation as he spoke all showed him to be a man more at home in the bright Italian land of song and sunlight than there, in an English village, the proprietor of that charming old home of his honourable ancestors.</p> @@ -806,11 +806,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">Had she but lived and loved how different would my own wasted, aimless life have been!</p> <p class="narrative">Yes. She was, after all, my dear dead love—my Ella!</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap10"></a> +<a id="chap10"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Ten.</h3> <h4 class="event">My Own Confession.</h4> <p class="narrative">The “Lion” Inn was a pleasant, old-fashioned little hostelry overlooking the bay, with Bournemouth beyond the distant haze. My room was small and clean, with white dimity curtains and hangings, and framed religious texts upon the walls. As I sat at the window in the hour before my dinner was ready, I reflected upon the strange incidents of those past few days—a chain of curious circumstances that seemed to enmesh and to entangle me.</p> @@ -860,11 +860,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">I was, I felt certain, the very last person whom she desired to meet.</p> <p class="narrative">The very fact of my presence there told her that I knew something concerning her—something concerning the past that she intended at all costs to hide from me.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap11"></a> +<a id="chap11"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Eleven.</h3> <h4 class="event">Lucie is Confidential.</h4> <p class="narrative">“This is not altogether an accidental meeting, Miss Miller,” I confessed at once to her. “The fact is I have waited in vain for your return to Granville Gardens, and at length have thought it wise to come here in search of you.”</p> @@ -922,11 +922,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">Every girl, even in her school years, has her own little affair of the heart, generally becoming hopelessly infatuated with some man much her senior, who is in ignorance of the burning he is awakening within the girlish breast. But hers was, I distinguished, a real serious affection, one which, like my own, had ended in black grief and tragedy.</p> <p class="narrative">But she had told me one truth—a ghastly truth. I had misjudged my dear dead love! She had still loved me—she had still been mine—in heart my own!</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap12"></a> +<a id="chap12"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twelve.</h3> <h4 class="event">In which a Strange Thing Happens.</h4> <p class="narrative">“If your love has ended in tragedy, as mine has done, then we can surely sympathise with each other, Miss Miller,” I said, looking into her tearful eyes. “You know well how I have suffered. I believed that Ella really preferred that man to myself, and what you have now told me amazes me. I believed that she was false to me—and yet you tell me that she was true. Ah! how dearly I loved her! I do not believe that any man ever loved a woman so fondly, and with such fierce passion as I did. I was hers—body and soul. My love for her was that deep, all-consuming affection which sometimes makes a man as wax in a woman’s hands—to be moulded for good or for evil as she wills it. I lost all count of time, of friends, of everything, for I lived only for her. The hours when we were parted were to me like years, her words were music, her smiles the sunlight of my life, her sighs the shadows, her kisses the ecstatic bliss of terrestrial paradise in which I lived. Ah! yes, you who have loved and lost can well understand all that her love meant to me—you can understand why one dark foggy night I stood upon Charing Cross platform and swore an oath that never again would I put foot in the country which, though my native land, held for me only a poignant memory.”</p> @@ -973,11 +973,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">“And what harm if it did?” I asked, but ere she could reply a strange thing happened—an incident more startling and more amazing than any I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams.</p> <p class="narrative">I held my breath, and stood rooted to the spot.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap13"></a> +<a id="chap13"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirteen.</h3> <h4 class="event">Beneath the Love-Light.</h4> <p class="narrative">What followed was amazing, mystifying.</p> @@ -1037,11 +1037,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">“Yes, whatever I may have said of him, and however much I have hated him in the past, I cannot help acknowledging that before his death he rendered me the greatest service.”</p> <p class="narrative">“Yet you were prepared to perform a noble self-sacrifice, Ella,” I said, in a low, serious voice. “You kept your secret, and before we parted told me what was untrue. But Lucie has revealed to me the astounding truth. Only to-night, for the first time, have I realised all that your self-martyrdom meant—only to-night have I discovered that, after all, you still loved me just as fondly and with a passion just as fierce as my own—that even though engaged to Blumenthal your dear heart was still my own.”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap14"></a> +<a id="chap14"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Fourteen.</h3> <h4 class="event">Cruel Destiny.</h4> <p class="narrative">James Harding Miller was seated alone in a long cane deck-chair on the terrace that ran the whole length of the beautiful old house. He had drawn it out through the French windows of the smoking-room, and was idly drawing out a cigar in the semi-darkness.</p> @@ -1098,11 +1098,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">“I have never forgotten, darling. You are my own dear Ella, as always. Therefore we are now inseparable—we <i>shall</i> meet again.”</p> <p class="narrative">“Impossible!” she declared decisively in that same hard tone, her voice so entirely changed. “I am no longer your love, Godfrey. I may as well confess to you the bitter truth at once—<i>I am another’s</i>!”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap15"></a> +<a id="chap15"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Fifteen.</h3> <h4 class="event">Betrays some Hidden Intrigue.</h4> <p class="narrative">I fell back at Ella’s words, as though I had received a blow full in the chest.</p> @@ -1167,11 +1167,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">“No, Godfrey. Let us say good-night here. Let both of us go our own way, as we have done before; both of us, however, now confident in each other’s love, even though our lives lie far apart. Remember me only as an unhappy woman who, through no fault of her own, is prevented from becoming your wife. Think of me still as your Ella of the old sweet days, and I will remember you, my Godfrey—the—the man I love. I—”</p> <p class="narrative">But she could utter no further word, for she burst into a flood of bitter tears.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap16"></a> +<a id="chap16"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Sixteen.</h3> <h4 class="event">Introduces Mr Gordon-Wright.</h4> <p class="narrative">Next morning, after a night of dark reflections, spent at the dormer window of the village inn, I called at the Manor House as early as the convenances would permit.</p> @@ -1227,11 +1227,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">We had met before—under circumstances that were, to say the least, both startling and strange.</p> <p class="narrative">In that instant I recognised how that the mystery had deepened a thousandfold.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap17"></a> +<a id="chap17"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Seventeen.</h3> <h4 class="event">What Happened in the Night.</h4> <p class="narrative">Whether the recognition had been mutual I was unable to decide.</p> @@ -1272,11 +1272,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">As you have, no doubt, already guessed, the man who so cleverly got hold of Blenkap’s money, and who had escaped so swiftly, I now recognised as the affable Lieutenant Shacklock, the intimate friend and guest of James Harding Miller.</p> <p class="narrative">Was not his presence in that house sufficient to convince me that what had been suspected of Miller was more than a mere surmise? It had been declared that Lucie’s father, though a county gentleman, was also head of the most daring association of criminals in Europe. It seemed to me that Gordon-Wright, alias Shacklock, was one of his ingenious lieutenants whom he was entertaining in his cosy retreat—planning some new scheme perhaps—and who was, at the same time, an ardent admirer of the beautiful girl whose unhappiness and deadly peril was so great a mystery.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap18"></a> +<a id="chap18"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Eighteen.</h3> <h4 class="event">Plight and Pursuit.</h4> <p class="narrative">I left the Manor with my eyes dim and my heart beating fast with a sickening pain. I moved down the road without quite well knowing where I went.</p> @@ -1340,11 +1340,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">I stood watching the fast receding car, my heart sinking within me. Ella was before my very eyes, escaping me—never to return.</p> <p class="narrative">I knew that the intention was to evade me in future. And yet how madly I loved her. No matter what she said or what she did, she was still mine—mine!</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap19"></a> +<a id="chap19"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Nineteen.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Blue Motor-Car.</h4> <p class="narrative">Gibbs was the first to speak. He examined the burst critically, glanced at the fast disappearing car, and, turning to me, asked:—</p> @@ -1385,11 +1385,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">For another five minutes I waited, then Gibbs, approaching me, touched his cap, and inquired if I were ready, adding under his breath:—</p> <p class="narrative">“I’ve found out where they’re goin’, sir. There’s some mystery about them, I believe. I’ll tell you when we get away.”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap20"></a> +<a id="chap20"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty.</h3> <h4 class="event">Reveals the Truth.</h4> <p class="narrative">“They’re goin’ to a place called Upper Wooton, about half way between Saltash and Callington, on the Launceston road. I know the village—quite a tiny place,” Gibbs said, as we went up the picturesque street of Ashburton.</p> @@ -1444,11 +1444,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">And the man? His countenance was, alas! only too familiar to me.</p> <p class="narrative">He was the fellow I had met only that very morning under Miller’s roof—the man whom I had known in Nervi as Lieutenant Shacklock, R.N.!</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap21"></a> +<a id="chap21"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty One.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Peril of Ella Murray.</h4> <p class="narrative">In an instant the bewildering mystery of it all became apparent.</p> @@ -1506,11 +1506,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">“I think it is perfectly unnecessary,” she said, with some attempt at defiance.</p> <p class="narrative">“There, I beg to differ,” he answered. “You have learnt a secret, and I must have some adequate guarantee that that secret is kept—that no single word of it is breathed to a living soul. You understand, Ella,” he added, in a low, fierce half-whisper, lowering his dark clean-shaven face to hers. “You understand! <i>My life depends upon it</i>!”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap22"></a> +<a id="chap22"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty Two.</h3> <h4 class="event">At Dawn.</h4> <p class="narrative">The dark-haired woman who had accompanied Ella in the motor-car came forth and joined the pair, preventing any further confidences, and a few minutes later the dinner-gong sounded, and all three went in to join Mr Murray and his companion.</p> @@ -1549,11 +1549,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">He was as ingenious and unscrupulous a criminal as there was in the whole length and breadth of the kingdom.</p> <p class="narrative">I saw in what deadly peril was my sweet well-beloved. She was in fear of him. Perhaps he, on his part, held some secret of hers. From her attitude I suspected this. If so, then any word of mine to the police would bring to her only ruin and disgrace!</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap23"></a> +<a id="chap23"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty Three.</h3> <h4 class="event">Children of Circumstance.</h4> <p class="narrative">Was any man more pitiful, more foolish, more pathetically lonely, more grotesquely fooled by Fate than I?</p> @@ -1613,11 +1613,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">Was that to be our last walk together, I wondered? I sighed when I recollected how utterly we were the children of circumstance.</p> <p class="narrative">Beside her I walked with a swelling heart. I consumed my soul in muteness and bitterness, my eyes set before me to the grey hills behind which the sun had risen.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap24"></a> +<a id="chap24"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty Four.</h3> <h4 class="event">“I am not Fit!”</h4> <p class="narrative">Of a sudden, she turned her head and glanced full in my eyes. Her thoughts were, like mine, of the past—of those glad and gracious days.</p> @@ -1662,11 +1662,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">For a few moments she made no reply, but looked at me very long—very wistfully, with no passion in those dear eyes, only a despair that was so great that it chilled me into speechless terror.</p> <p class="narrative">“No, no,” she cried at last, covering her face with her white hands, as though in shame, and bursting into a flood of tears. “You do not know all—I pray that you, the man I love so fondly, may never know! If you knew you would hate me and curse my memory. Therefore take back those words, and forget me—yes, forget—for I am not fit to be your wife!”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap25"></a> +<a id="chap25"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty Five.</h3> <h4 class="event">By the Tyrrhenian Waters.</h4> <p class="narrative">Ella was all mine—all mine! Mine all the glad fearless freedom of her life; mine all the sweet kisses, the rapturous tenderness, the priceless passion of her love; mine all! And I had lost them.</p> @@ -1693,7 +1693,7 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">“Yes. As soon as you are ready.”</p> <p class="narrative">“Where to, sir?”</p> <p class="narrative">“Back to Swanage.”</p> -<p class="narrative">We ran across Devon and Dorset at a somewhat lower speed to what we had travelled when overtaking the 40 “Mercédès.” Gibbs had no desire to put in an appearance before any local bench. Indeed nowadays lit is useless to make an appearance. So prejudiced are magistrates, and such hard swearing is there on the part of the police, that motorists must pay up cheerfully. There is no justice for the pioneers of locomotion.</p> +<p class="narrative">We ran across Devon and Dorset at a somewhat lower speed to what we had travelled when overtaking the 40 “Mercédès.” Gibbs had no desire to put in an appearance before any local bench. Indeed nowadays it is useless to make an appearance. So prejudiced are magistrates, and such hard swearing is there on the part of the police, that motorists must pay up cheerfully. There is no justice for the pioneers of locomotion.</p> <p class="narrative">We returned by another road, which proved better than that by which we had come, and just before eleven at night I descended from the car at the “Lion,” and after some supper with the fat genial landlord, who took a deep interest in my journey and hardly credited that I had been into Cornwall and back, I went up to the room I had previously occupied.</p> <p class="narrative">Tired after the heat and dust of the road I slept well, but was up betimes, and at half-past nine walked out to the Manor House.</p> <p class="narrative">A maid-servant came to the door in response to my ring. “Mr Miller and the young lady have gone away, sir,” the girl replied to my inquiry. “They went up to London yesterday.”</p> @@ -1771,11 +1771,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">“Then what have you heard?”</p> <p class="narrative">“I’ve heard a good deal that surprises me,” replied the Countess. “In fact, the whole affair is a very grave scandal, and I, for one, don’t mean to be dragged into it.”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap26"></a> +<a id="chap26"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty Six.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Home of the Mysterious Englishman.</h4> <p class="narrative">At half-past five o’clock that same afternoon, heedless of the Countess Moltedo’s mysterious warning, I was standing by Lucie’s side at the long French window that opened upon the balcony. Below, hundreds of visitors, mostly dressed in white, as is the mode of Leghorn, were promenading in the little pine wood that lies between the roadway and the sea, while beyond stretched the broad glassy Mediterranean aglow in the fiery rays of the Tuscan sunset, the mystic islands showing dark purple on the far-off horizon.</p> @@ -1897,11 +1897,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">“Then if you will not, I will!” I cried, angry at her sudden withdrawal after all the sympathy I had shown her, and goaded by thoughts of my love’s martyrdom. “Fortunately I happen to know that Gordon-Wright alias Lieutenant Shacklock is wanted by the police of half a dozen different countries, as well as certain of his associates, and a word from me will effect his arrest.” She started, and her face went ashen pale. She saw that I knew the truth, and in an instant held me in dread.</p> <p class="narrative">“You—” she gasped. “You would do this—<i>you</i>?”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap27"></a> +<a id="chap27"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty Seven.</h3> <h4 class="event">From a Woman’s Lips.</h4> <p class="narrative">The handsome, dark-haired girl had placed her hand upon my arm, and stood with her eyes anxiously fixed upon mine.</p> @@ -1975,11 +1975,11 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">Her thin lips trembled, but at first no word escaped them. Laughter and the sound of gaiety came up from the promenade below.</p> <p class="narrative">I stood there in silence in the soft fading light await her confession—confession surely of one of the strangest truths that has ever been told by the lips of any woman.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap28"></a> +<a id="chap28"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty Eight.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Voice in the Street.</h4> <p class="narrative">At last she spoke.</p> @@ -2021,9 +2021,9 @@ Segni: porta lenti.<br /> <p class="narrative">From one of the open-air <i>café-chantants</i> in the vicinity came up the sound of light music and the trill of a female voice singing a French <i>chansonette</i>, for a rehearsal was in progress. And again a youth passing chanted gaily one of those <i>stornelli d’amore</i> which is heard everywhere in fair Tuscany, in the olive groves, in the vineyards, in the streets, in the barracks, that ancient half dirge, half-plaintive song, the same that has been sung for ages and ages by the youths in love:—</p> <blockquote> <p class="bqv"> - Mazzo di fiori!<br /> -Si vede il viso, e non si vede il core<br /> -Tu se’ un bel viso, ma non m’innamori.<br /> + Mazzo di fiori!<br > +Si vede il viso, e non si vede il core<br > +Tu se’ un bel viso, ma non m’innamori.<br > </p> </blockquote> <p class="narrative">Lucie heard the words and smiled.</p> @@ -2031,9 +2031,9 @@ Tu se’ un bel viso, ma non m’innamori.<br /> <p class="narrative">And as the voice died away we heard the words:—</p> <blockquote> <p class="bqv"> - Fiume di Lete!<br /> -Come la calamita mi tirate,<br /> -E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> + Fiume di Lete!<br > +Come la calamita mi tirate,<br > +E mi fate venir dove velete.<br > </p> </blockquote> <p class="narrative">Old Marietta, the Tuscan sewing-woman, entered and lit the gas. She looked askance at me, wondering why I remained there so long I expect.</p> @@ -2046,11 +2046,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">“Be courageous,” I said, in a low voice. “The future may not hold for you such terrors as you believe.”</p> <p class="narrative">“Future!” she echoed. “I have no future. <i>Addio</i>.” And I went down the wide, ill-lit stone staircase full of dismal foreboding, and out from the secret lair of the thief who was notorious, but whom the police of Europe had always failed to arrest.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap29"></a> +<a id="chap29"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Twenty Nine.</h3> <h4 class="event">Contains Another Surprise.</h4> <p class="narrative">I dined at a small table alone in the big crowded <i>table-d’hôte</i> room of the hotel. About me were some of the most exclusive set in Italy, well-dressed men and women, Roman princes, marquises and counts, with a fair sprinkling of the Hebrew fraternity. At the table next mine sat a young prince of great wealth together with the fair American girl to whom he was engaged to be married, and the young lady’s mother. The prince and his fiancée were speaking Italian, and the old lady from Idaho City, understanding no other language but her own, seemed to be having anything but an amusing time.</p> @@ -2087,11 +2087,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">“They’ve found out that the English signore stayed at the Grand, they don’t know where the young ladies were living, probably at some small pension. They are now doing all they can to find out, but it is difficult, as most of the pensions are closed just now. They’ve, however, discovered the name of the dead girl’s friend—through some dressmaker, I think. It was Mille—Milla—or some name like that. The English names are always so puzzling.”</p> <p class="narrative">“Miller!” I gasped, staring at the old fellow, as all that Lucie had admitted to me regarding her visit to the villa at Tivoli flashed through my bewildered brain. “And she was the intimate friend of this unknown girl who has been found dead in the empty house and whose tragic end has been officially hushed up!”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap30"></a> +<a id="chap30"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty.</h3> <h4 class="event">Some Discoveries in Rome.</h4> <p class="narrative">The mysterious flight of Nardini, the prominent politician and Minister for Justice, was, it seemed, still the one topic of conversation in the “Eternal City”, Only that morning I had read a paragraph in the <i>Tribuna</i> that the fugitive was believed to have reached Buenos Ayres. The Embassy in London had evidently kept the secret I had divulged, and even the Italian police were in ignorance that the man wanted for that gigantic embezzlement—for the sum stated to have disappeared was now known to be a very large one—was already in his grave.</p> @@ -2158,11 +2158,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">What I saw there staggered me. I was not prepared for it.</p> <p class="narrative">I could distinctly hear my own heart beating within me.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap31"></a> +<a id="chap31"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty One.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Secret of the Villa Verde.</h4> <p class="narrative">The unexpected sight that met my eyes within that narrow stone passage was truly horrifying.</p> @@ -2212,11 +2212,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">For a full hour they searched until suddenly the doctor, who had been indefatigable, while running his hand along the floor close to the oak wainscoting quite near the writing-table, made a discovery which instantly brought his companions upon their knees at his side.</p> <p class="narrative">“Look!” he cried. “See! There is a little piece of a different wood let in here—round like a large wooden stud! I wonder what it is?” He pressed it with his fingers, but to no avail. Therefore he took out his pocket-knife and with the end pressed down hard, throwing all his weight upon his hand. “It gives!” he cried excitedly. “There’s some spring behind it! You are stronger,” he exclaimed, turning to the younger man. “Try. Push down, so!”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap32"></a> +<a id="chap32"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty Two.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Ticking of the Clock.</h4> <p class="narrative">The man with the grey hat took the pocket-knife, knelt over the spot, placed the knife in position, and pressed with all his might, when slowly a panel of the oak wainscoting about two feet square fell forward until it lay flat at right angles, disclosing a small locked door behind.</p> @@ -2259,11 +2259,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">The men were silent in an instant—silent in awe.</p> <p class="narrative">The clock, hitherto unnoticed by them, had stopped ticking.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap33"></a> +<a id="chap33"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty Three.</h3> <h4 class="event">Certain Persons are Inquisitive.</h4> <p class="narrative">The half-open door through which I had been watching the men’s mysterious movements, and the discovery of the fugitive’s hidden wealth, suddenly closed of its own accord, with the heavy clang of iron.</p> @@ -2359,11 +2359,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">Turning with a start I faced a short man in a light tweed suit, while behind him stood the two detectives.</p> <p class="narrative">My heart sank within me. I knew that the affair at the Villa Verde had been discovered, and that I was lost!</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap34"></a> +<a id="chap34"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty Four.</h3> <h4 class="event">Love in Fetters.</h4> <p class="narrative">“Just step in here one moment,” said the man in the grey suit. “I want to ask you a question.” And he conducted me to a small office at the farther end of the platform, the bureau of the Italian police.</p> @@ -2446,11 +2446,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">“They know the truth! I—I am—”</p> <p class="narrative">And she fell back again into the long deck-chair, rigid and insensible.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap35"></a> +<a id="chap35"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty Five.</h3> <h4 class="event">An Evening at Hyde Park Gate.</h4> <p class="narrative">When Miller returned and found his daughter conscious but prostrate, he naturally attributed it to <i>mal-de-mer</i>, and began to poke fun at her for being ill upon such a calm sea.</p> @@ -2577,11 +2577,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">I saw his grinning exultant face in mine. There was the fire of murder in his eyes.</p> <p class="narrative">Then I sank to the floor and knew no more. He had mistaken me for one of Miller’s accomplices, and I was helpless in his revengeful hands.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap36"></a> +<a id="chap36"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty Six.</h3> <h4 class="event">Two Mysteries.</h4> <p class="narrative">My first recollections were of endeavouring to see through a blood-red cloud that hid everything from my distorted vision.</p> @@ -2694,11 +2694,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">I turned, and saw that it was my friend the detective, while Lucie also recognised and greeted him instantly.</p> <p class="narrative">“As I was passing, I thought I’d just drop in and tell you, feeling sure you’d be interested,” he said, addressing me; “the fact is that this afternoon we’ve made a most amazing discovery. Perhaps you will be able to throw some light upon it. At present it is a complete and profound mystery.”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap37"></a> +<a id="chap37"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty Seven.</h3> <h4 class="event">Needs some Explanation.</h4> <p class="narrative">“What is it?” I asked anxiously.</p> @@ -2805,11 +2805,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">“Ah! yes!” I cried in despair. “I see it all! Your fear prevents you from allowing me to unmask this man—you fear that your father should learn your secret!”</p> <p class="narrative">“I fear that you, too, should learn it—that instead of loving me,” she said, with a wild look in her splendid eyes, “you would hate me!”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap38"></a> +<a id="chap38"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty Eight.</h3> <h4 class="event">Tells the Truth.</h4> <p class="narrative">In the rich glow of the autumn evening we sat together for some time, our hearts too full of grief for words. The future of both of us was filled with blank despair. My presence there brought back to her all the sweet recollections of those long-past days when she was free, and when to save her father from ruin she had so nobly sacrificed her love.</p> @@ -2882,11 +2882,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">“Miss Miller,” Sammy exclaimed, in a soft tone now full of sympathy for the poor suffering girl, “you mentioned just now the unfortunate death of my friend Manuel Carrera, in Paris. You recollect that I—”</p> <p class="narrative">“Manuel Carrera!” cried Ella, suddenly releasing Lucie and facing Sammy. “Was he your friend? Then let me also tell you the truth! Hear my confession, Godfrey, and then you shall judge me!”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap39"></a> +<a id="chap39"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Thirty Nine.</h3> <h4 class="event">Unites Two Hearts.</h4> <p class="narrative">The revelations amazed me. I held my breath and faced her. There was a terrible eloquence in the silence of that room.</p> @@ -2930,11 +2930,11 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">Our lips met again. She gazed into my eyes, and then she burst into tears—tears of joy. The fetters that bound her to the man she hated had been broken, and she stood there, sweet, pure, innocent and free—free to be mine—mine for ever.</p> <p class="narrative">“My love,” I said, heedless that we were not alone, “this affection of ours is greater than death, great as eternity itself; a love that shall leave earth with us when our souls leave our bodies and reach its uttermost perfection in other lives, in other worlds; a love that time cannot chill, nor any woe appal, nor any man unsever. God Himself has united us, and none can now place us asunder.”</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <div class="bodytext"> -<a name="chap40"></a> +<a id="chap40"></a> <h3 class="chapter">Chapter Forty.</h3> <h4 class="event">Conclusion.</h4> <p class="narrative">To-day I am seated in the long old library at Wichenford where, at the big writing-table set in the deep window, I have spent so many hours putting down in black and white this curious chronicle of the evil that men do. The last blank folios lie before me.</p> @@ -2949,10 +2949,10 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> <p class="narrative">To-day as I pen this final page they have been man and wife already three whole months. Not long, it is true, but sufficient to show us how happy they are in each other’s love. They have taken “The Cedars,” a charming old ivy-covered house a mile from Melton Mowbray, for both are passionately fond of hunting, and both are looking forward to good runs this next season.</p> <p class="narrative">The summer sun is sinking lower. Over everywhere is a faint ethereal golden mist that rises from the water and the woods; the colour deepens; the scent of the blossoms grows stronger. The charm of perfect freedom and perfect faith are ours. This modern world sneers at the isolation and absorption of passion as an egotism, but surely it is its highest sublimity. Love that remembers aught save the one beloved may be affection, but it certainly is not love.</p> <p class="narrative">And while Ella and I are leading a life of peace undisturbed and of love infinite—a God-given love that surpasses any that man has known within his heart—Italian police agents in various parts of the world are still in active search of Giovanni Nardini, and Scotland Yard is still sorely puzzled over the antecedents and tragic end of the Mysterious Mr Miller.</p> -<hr /> +<hr > <p class="narrative">The End.</p> <p class="narrative"></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div class="navigation"> | <a href="#chap01">Chapter 1</a> | @@ -2996,9 +2996,10 @@ E mi fate venir dove velete.<br /> | <a href="#chap39">Chapter 39</a> | | <a href="#chap40">Chapter 40</a> | <p></p> -<hr /> +<hr > </div> <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41453 ***</div> </body> </html> + |