HIS OWN PEOPLE "You never met Selwyn, did you?" "No, sir." "Never heard anything definite about his trouble?" insisted Gerard. "Oh, yes, sir!" replied young Erroll, "I've heard a good deal about it. Everybody has, you know." "Well, I don't know," retorted Austin Gerard irritably, "what 'everybody' has heard, but I suppose it's... more...

CHAPTER I. ACQUAINTANCE The speed of the train slackened; a broad tidal river flashed into sight below the trestle, spreading away on either hand through yellowing level meadows. And now, above the roaring undertone of the cars, from far ahead floated back the treble bell-notes of the locomotive; there came a gritting vibration of brakes; slowly, more slowly the cars glided to a creaking standstill... more...

I Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down; lying there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls, and the breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity of himself. Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed his bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the automatic pulses which never cease. Sometimes, when... more...

CHAPTER I WHEN Mrs. Greensleeve first laid eyes on her baby she knew it was different from the other children. "What is the matter with it?" she asked. The preoccupied physician replied that there was nothing the matter. In point of fact he had been admiring the newly born little girl when her mother asked the question. "She's about as perfect as they make 'em," he concluded,... more...

``Your father will be delighted to take you wherever there is a probability of breaking both your necks, my dear,'' said Mrs Dene. ``Griffin!'' said Ruth, giving her hand a loving little squeeze under the table. Loisl came up with his zither and they all made way before him. Anna placed a small lantern on the table and the light fell on the handsome bearded... more...

All day Sunday they had raised the devil from attic to cellar; Mrs. Farren was in tears, Howker desperate. Not one out of the fifteen servants considered necessary to embellish the Seagrave establishment could do anything with them after Kathleen Severn's sudden departure the week before. When the telegram announcing her mother's sudden illness summoned young Mrs. Severn to Staten Island,... more...

Not the dark companion of Sirius, brightest of all stars—not our own chill and spectral planet rushing toward Vega in the constellation of Lyra—presided at the birth of millions born to corroborate a bloody horoscope. But a Dark Star, speeding unseen through space, known to the ancients, by them called Erlik, after the Prince of Darkness, ruled at the birth of those myriad souls destined to be... more...