Fiction Books

A Deceptive Dedication I I have shown the manuscript of this book to a well-known author. One of those staid, established authors whose venom has been extracted by the mellow years. My author is beyond rancour and exploit; he has earned the right to bask in his own celebrity, and needs to judge no more, because no longer does he fear judgment. He is like a motorist who has sowed his wild petrol. He... more...

CHAPTER I. "When do you start, Tom?" "At midnight." "Well, good-by; sock it to 'em; send us in some fat orders." "I'll do it, or die; good-by." And then I sat down to think it all over. Our traveling man was off on a wedding tour, and I had agreed to take his place for this one trip. As the hour drew near for me to start, my courage proportionately sank, until... more...

CHAPTER I. A quartette party—three violins and a 'cello—sat in summer evening weather in a garden. This garden was full of bloom and odor, and was shut in by high walls of ripe old brick. Here and there were large-sized plaster casts—Venus, Minerva, Mercury, a goat-hoofed Pan with his pipes, a Silence with a finger at her lips. They were all sylvan green and crumbled with exposure to the... more...

I. My name is Louis Roubien. I am seventy years old. I was born in the village of Saint-Jory, several miles up the Garonne from Toulouse. For fourteen years I battled with the earth for my daily bread. At last, prosperity smiled on we, and last month I was still the richest farmer in the parish. Our house seemed blessed, happiness reigned there. The sun was our brother, and I cannot recall a bad crop.... more...

IN THE MAYOR'S PARLOUR THE MAYOR'S PARLOUR Hathelsborough market-place lies in the middle of the town—a long, somewhat narrow parallelogram, enclosed on its longer side by old gabled houses; shut in on its western end by the massive bulk of the great parish church of St. Hathelswide, Virgin and Martyr, and at its eastern by the ancient walls and high roofs of its mediæval Moot Hall. The... more...

I. I woke up very gradually this morning, and it took me a little while to bethink myself where I had slept—that it had not been in my own room in the Cromwell Road. I lay a-bed, with eyes half-closed, drowsily look looking forward to the usual procession of sober-hued London hours, and, for the moment, quite forgot the journey of yesterday, and how it had left me in Paris, a guest in the smart new... more...

I Run With the Fox Better to be proud and huntedThan to ride with the Pink Coats. Better than the smell of warm blood after a quick kill, Bitter and bright the scent of hidden fern. Though the heart fail in the panting sideAnd the eye be clouded with strainingafter the deep copseStill is there thrill in flight —Soft are oak leaves under the swift feet. Sweet are the distant notes of the hunter's... more...

1. The Brotherhood of the Door An amazing weird mystery story, packed with thrills, danger and startling events."Where leads the Door?" "It leads outside our world." "Who taught our forefathers to open the Door?" "They Beyond the Door taught them." "To whom do we bring these sacrifices?" "We bring them to Those Beyond the Door." "Shall the Door be... more...

ACT I Scene—The Thuilleries. Barrere.The tempest gathers—be it mine to seekA friendly shelter, ere it bursts upon him.But where? and how? I fear the Tyrant'ssoul—Sudden in action, fertile in resource,And rising awful 'mid impending ruins;In splendor gloomy, as the midnight meteor,That fearless thwarts the elemental war.When last in secret conference we met,He scowl'd upon me with... more...

CHAPTER I "As well give up the Bible at once, as our belief in apparitions."—Wesley. The house cried out to me for help. In the after-knowledge I now possess of what was to happen there, that impression is not more clearly definite than it was at my first sight of the place. Let me at once set down that this is not the story of a haunted house. It is, or was, a beleaguered house; strangely... more...