THE FORMULA
Velmot dead, Berangere alive: the joy of it! The sudden sense of
security! This time, the evil adventure was over, since the girl whom
I loved had nothing more to fear. And my thoughts at once harked back
to Noel Dorgeroux: the formula in which the great secret was summed up
was saved. With the clues and the means of action which existed
elsewhere, mankind was now in a position to continue my uncle's work.
Berangere called me back:
"He's dead, isn't he?"
I felt intuitively that I ought not to tell her a truth which was too
heavy for her to bear and which she was afraid of hearing and I
declared:
"Not at all. . . . We haven't seen him. . . . He must have got away.
. . ."
My answer seemed to relieve her; and she whispered:
"In any case, he is wounded. . . . I know I hit him."
"Rest, my darling," I said, "and don't worry any more about anything."
She did as she was told; and she was so weary that she soon fell
asleep.
Before taking her home, the count and I went back to the body and
lowered it down the slope of the ravine, which we followed to the wall
that surrounded the estate. As there was a breach at this spot, the
count gave it as his opinion that Velmot could not have entered
anywhere but here. And in fact a little lower down, at the entrance to
a lonely forest-road we discovered his car. We lifted the body into
it, placed the revolver on the seat, drove the car to a distance of
half a mile and left it at the entrance to a clearing. We met nobody
on the road. The death would beyond a doubt be ascribed to suicide.
An hour later, Berangere, now back to the lodge and lying on her bed,
gave me her hand, which I covered with kisses. We were alone, with no
more enemies around us. There was no hideous shape prowling in the
dark. No one was any longer able to thwart our rightful happiness.
"The nightmare has passed," I said. "There is no obstacle left between
you and me. You will no longer try to run away, will you?"
I watched her with an emotion in which still lingered no small
anxiety. Dear little girl, she was still, to me, a creature full of
mystery and the unknown; and there were many secrets hidden in the
shadowy places of that soul into which I had never entered. I told her
as much. She in her turn looked at me for a long time, with her tired
and fevered eyes, so different from the careless, laughing eyes which
I had loved long ago, and she whispered:
"Secrets? My secrets? No. There is only one secret in me; and that one
secret is the cause of everything."
"May I hear it?"
"I love you."
I felt a thrill of joy. Often I had experienced a profound intuition
of this love of hers, but it had been spoilt by so much distrust,
suspicion and resentment. And now Berangere was confessing it to me,
gravely and frankly.
"You love me," I repeated. "You love me. Why did you not tell me
earlier? How many misfortunes would have been avoided! Why didn't
you?"
"I couldn't."
"And you can now, because there is no longer any obstacle between us?"
"There is the same obstacle as ever."
"Which is that?"
"My father."
I said in a lower voice:
"Yon know that Theodore Massignac is dead?"
"Yes."
"Well, then?"
"I am Theodore Massignac's daughter."
I cried eagerly:
"Berangere, there is something I want to tell you; and I assure you
beforehand . . ."
She interrupted me:
"_Please_ don't say anything more. There's always _that_ between us.
It is a gulf which we cannot hope to fill with words."
She seemed so much exhausted that I made a movement to leave her. She
stopped me:
"No," she said, "don't go. I am not going to be ill . . . for more
than a day or two, at the outside. First of all, I want everything to
be quite clear between us; I want you to understand every single thing
that I have done. Listen to me. . . ."
"To-morrow, Berangere."
"No, to-day," she insisted. "I feel a need to tell you at once what I
have to say. Nothing will do more to restore my peace of mind. Listen
to me. . . ."
She did not have to entreat me long. How could I have wearied of
looking at her and listening to her? We had been through such trials
when separated from each other that I was afraid, after all, of being
parted from her now.
She put her arm round my neck. Her beautiful lips were quivering
beneath my eyes. Seeing my gaze fixed upon them, she smiled:
"You remember, in the Yard . . . the first time. . . . From that day,
I hated you . . . and adored you. . . . I was your enemy . . . and
your slave. . . . Yes, all my independent and rather wild nature was
up in arms at not being able to shake off a recollection which gave me
so much pain . . . and so much pleasure! . . . I was mastered. I ran
away from you. I kept on coming back to you . . . and I should have
come back altogether, if that man--you know whom I mean--had not
spoken to me one morning. . . ."
"Velmot! What did he come for? What did he want?"
"He came from my father. What he wanted, as I perceived later, was
through me to enter into Noel Dorgeroux's life and rob him of the
secret of his invention."
"Why did you not warn me?"
"From the first moment, Velmot asked me to be silent. Later, he
commanded it."
"You ought not to have obeyed him. . . ."
"Had I committed the least indiscretion, he would have killed you. I
loved you. I was afraid; and I was all the more afraid because Velmot
persecuted me with a love which my hatred for him merely stimulated.
How could I doubt that his threat was seriously meant? From that time
onward, I was caught in the wheels of the machine. What with one lie
and another, I became his accomplice . . . or rather their accomplice,
for my father joined him in the course of the winter. Oh, the torture
of it! That man who loved me . . . and that contemptible father! . . .
I lived a life of horror . . . always hoping that they would grow
tired because their machinations were leading to nothing."
"And what about my letters from Grenoble? And my uncle's fears?"
"Yes, I know, my uncle often mentioned them to me; and, without
revealing the plot to him, I myself put him on his guard. It was at my
request that he sent you that report which was stolen. Only, he never
anticipated murder. Theft, yes; and, notwithstanding the watch which
I maintained, I could see that I was doing no good, that my father
made his way into the Lodge at night, that he had at his disposal
methods of which I knew nothing. But between that and murder,
assassination! No, no, a daughter cannot believe such things."
"So, on the Sunday, when Velmot came to fetch you at the Lodge while
Noel Dorgeroux was out . . . ?"
"That Sunday, he told me that my father had given up his plan and
wanted to say good-bye to me and that he was waiting for me by the
chapel in the disused cemetery, where the two of them had been
experimenting with the fragments removed from the old wall in the
Yard. As it happened, Velmot had taken advantage of his call at the
Lodge to steal one of the blue phials which my uncle used. I did not
notice this before he had already poured part of the liquid on the
improvised screen of the chapel. I was able to get hold of the phial
and throw it into the well. Just then you called me. Velmot made a
rush at me and carried me to his motor-car, where, after stunning me
with his fist and binding me, he hid me under a rug. When I recovered
from my swoon, I was in the garage at Batignolles. It was in the
evening. I was able to push the car under a window which opened on
the street, and I jumped out. A gentleman and a lady who were passing
picked me up, for I had sprained my ankle as I came to the ground.
They took me home with them. Next morning I read in the papers that
Noel Dorgeroux had been murdered."
Berangere hid her face in her hands:
"Oh, how I suffered! Was I not responsible for his death? And I should
have given myself up, if M. and Madame de Roncherolles, who were the
kindest of friends to me, had not prevented me. To give myself up
meant ruining my father and, as a consequence, destroying Noel
Dorgeroux's secret. This last consideration decided me. I had to
repair the wrong which I had unwittingly committed and to fight
against those whom I had served. As soon as I was well again, I set to
work. Knowing of the existence of the written instructions which Noel
Dorgeroux had hidden behind the portrait of D'Alembert, I had myself
driven to the Lodge on the evening before, or rather on the morning of
the inauguration. My intention was to see you and tell you everything.
But it so happened that the kitchen-entrance was open and that I was
able to go upstairs without attracting anybody's attention. It was
then that you surprised me, in god-father's bedroom."
"But why did you run away, Berangere?"
"You had the documents; and that was enough."
"No, you ought to have stayed and explained."
"Then you shouldn't have spoken to me of love," she replied, sadly.
"No one can love Massignac's daughter."
"And the result, my poor darling," I said, with a smile, "was that
Massignac, who was in the house, of which he had a key, and who
overheard our conversation, took the document and, through your fault,
remained the sole possessor of the secret. Not to mention that you
left me face to face with a formidable adversary!"
She shook her head: "You had nothing to fear from my father. Your
danger came from Velmot; and him I watched."
"How?"
"I had accepted an invitation to stay at the Chateau de Pre-Bony,
because I knew that my father and Velmot had lived in that
neighbourhood during the past winter. Indeed, one day I recognized
Velmot's car coming down the hill at Bougival. After some searching, I
discovered the shed in which he kept his car. Well, on the fifteenth
of May, I was watching there when he went in, accompanied by two men.
From what they said I gathered that they had carried off my father at
the end of the performance, that they had taken him to an island in
the river where Velmot lay in hiding and that next day Velmot was to
resort to every possible method to make him speak. I did not know what
to do. To denounce Velmot to the police meant supplying them with
convincing evidence against my father. On the other hand, my friends
the Roncherolles were not at Pre-Bony. Longing for assistance, I ran
to the Blue Lion and telephoned to you making an appointment with you
there."
"I kept the appointment that same night, Berangere."
"You came that night?" she asked, surprised.
"Of course I did; and at the door of the inn I was met by a small boy,
sent by you, who took me to the island and to Velmot's house and to a
room in which Velmot locked me up and from which, on the following
day, I witnessed Theodore Massignac's torture and removal. My dear
Berangere, it wasn't very clever of you!"
She seemed stupefied and said: "I sent no boy. I never left the Blue
Lion and I waited for you that night and all the morning. Somebody
must have given us away: I can't think who."
"It's a simple enough mystery," I said, laughing. "Velmot no doubt had
a crony of some sort in the inn, who told him of your telephone-call.
Then he must have sent that boy, who was in his pay, to pick me up on
my way to you."
"But why lay a trap for you and not for me?"
"Very likely he was waiting till next day to capture you. Very likely
he was more afraid of me and wanted to seize the opportunity to keep
me under lock and key until Massignac had spoken. Also no doubt he was
obeying motives and yielding to necessities of which we shall never
know and which moreover do not really matter. The fact remains,
Berangere, that, next day . . ."
"Next day," she resumed, "I managed to find a boat and in the evening,
to row round the island to the place where my father was dying. I was
able to save him."
I in my turn was bewildered:
"What, it was you who saved him? You succeeded in landing, in finding
Velmot in the dark, in hitting him just as he was turning on me? It
was you who stopped him? It was you who set Massignac free?"
I took her little hand and kissed it with emotion. The dear girl! She
also had done all she could to protect Noel Dorgeroux's secret; and
with what courage, with what undaunted pluck, risking death twenty
times over and not recoiling, at the great hour of danger, from the
terrible act of taking life!
"You must tell me all this in detail, Berangere. Go on with your
story. Where did you take your father to?"
"To the river bank; and from there, in a market-gardener's cart, to
the Chateau de Pre-Bony, where I nursed him."
"And Velmot?"
She gave a shudder:
"I did not see him again for days and days, not until this morning. I
was sitting on the bench by the ruins, reading. Suddenly he stood
before me. I tried to run away. He prevented me and said, 'Your father
is dead. I have come to you from him. Listen!' I distrusted him but he
went on to say, 'I swear I come from him; and, to prove it, he told me
that you knew the formula. He confided it to you during his illness.'
This was true. While I was nursing my father, in this very lodge, he
said to me one day, 'I can't tell what may happen, Berangere. It is
possible that I shall destroy the screen at Meudon, out of revenge. It
will be a mistake. In any case, I want to undo that act of madness
beforehand.' He then made me learn the formula by heart. And this was
a thing which no one except my father and myself could know, because I
was alone with him and kept the secret. Velmot, consequently, was
speaking the truth."
"What did you say?"
"I just said, 'Well?' Velmot said, 'His last wish was that you should
give me the formula.' 'Never!' I said. 'You lie! My father made me
swear never to reveal it to any one, whatever happened, except to one
person.' He shrugged his shoulders: 'Victorien Beaugrand, I suppose?'
'Yes.' 'Victorien Beaugrand heard Massignac's last words. And he
agrees with me, or at least is on the point of doing so.' 'I refuse to
believe it!' 'Ask him for yourself. He's up there, in the ruins
. . .'"
"I, in the ruins?"
"That's what he said: 'In the ruins, fastened to the foot of a tree.
His life depends on you. I offer it to you in exchange for the
formula. If not, he's a dead man.' I did not suspect the trap which he
was laying for me. I ran towards the ruins as fast as I could. This
was what Velmot wanted. The ruins was a deserted spot, which gave him
the chance to attack me. He took it at once, without even trying to
conceal his falsehood. 'Caught, baby!' he cried, throwing me to the
ground. 'Oh, I knew you'd be sure to come! Only think, it's your
lover, it's the man you love! For you do love him, don't you?'
Evidently his only object was to obtain the secret from me by threats
and blows. But what happened was that his rage against you and my
hatred and loathing for him made him lose his head. First of all he
wanted his revenge. He had me in his arms. Oh, the villain!"
She once more hid her face in her hands. She was very feverish; and I
heard her stammering:
"The villain! . . . I don't know how I got away from him. I was worn
out. For all that, I managed to give him a savage bite and to release
myself. He ran after me, brandishing his revolver; but just as he
caught me up, he fell and let go of it. I picked it up at once. When
he came after me again, I fired. . . ."
She was silent. The painful story had exhausted her. Her face retained
an expression of bewilderment and fright.
"My poor Berangere," I said, "I have done you a great wrong. I have
often, far too often, accused you in my heart, without guessing what a
wonderful, plucky creature you were."
"You could not be expected to understand me."
"Why not?"
She murmured sadly:
"I am Massignac's daughter."
"No more of that!" I cried. "You are the one who always sacrificed
herself and who always took the risk. And you are also the girl I
love, Berangere, the girl who gave me all her life and all her soul in
a kiss. Remember Berangere . . . the other day in the Yard, when I
found you again and when the sight of all those visions of love threw
you in my arms. . . ."
"I have forgotten nothing," she said, "and I never shall forget."
"Then you consent?"
Once again she repeated:
"I am Massignac's daughter."
"Is that the only reason why you refuse me?"
"Can you doubt it?"
I allowed a moment to pass and said:
"So that, if your fate had willed it that you were not Massignac's
daughter, you would have consented to be my wife?"
"Yes," she said, gravely.
The hour had come to speak; and how happy was I to be able to do so. I
repeated my sentence:
"If fate had willed that you were not Massignac's daughter. . . .
Berangere, did it never occur to you to wonder why there was so
little affection between Massignac and you, why, on the contrary,
there was so much indifference? When you were a child, the thought of
going back to him and living with him used to upset you terribly. All
your life was wrapped up in the Yard. All your love went out to Noel
Dorgeroux. Don't you think, when all is said, that we are entitled to
interpret your girlish feelings and instincts in a special sense?"
She looked at me in surprise:
"I don't understand," she said.
"You don't understand, because you have never thought about these
things. For instance, is it natural that the death of the man whom you
called your father should give you such an impression of deliverance
and relief?"
She seemed dazed:
"Why do you say, the man whom I called my father?"
"Well," I replied, smiling, "I have never seen your birth-certificate.
And, as I have no proof of a fact which seems to me improbable . . ."
"But," she said, in a changed voice, "you have not the least proof
either that it is not so. . . ."
"Perhaps I have," I answered.
"Oh," said Berangere, "it would be too terrible to say that and not to
let me learn the truth at once!"
"Do you know Massignac's writing?"
I took a letter from my pocket and handed it to her:
"Read this, my darling. It is a letter which Massignac wrote to me and
which he handed to me as he lay dying. I read only the first few words
to begin with and at once went off in search of you. Read it,
Berangere, and have no doubts: it is the evidence of a dead man."
She took the letter and read aloud:
"Berangere knows the formula and must not communicate
it to any one except you alone, Victorien. You will
marry her, will you not? She is not my daughter, but
Noel Dorgeroux's. She was born five months after my
marriage, as you can confirm by consulting the public
records. Forgive me, both of you, and pray for me."
A long pause followed. Berangere was weeping tears of joy. A radiant
light was being thrown on her whole life. The awful weight that had
bowed her down in shame and despair no longer bore upon her shoulders.
She was at last able to breathe and hold her head high and look
straight before her and accept her share of happiness and love. She
whispered:
"Is it possible? Noel Dorgeroux's daughter? Is it possible?"
"It is possible," I said, "and it is certain. After his rightful
struggle with Velmot and after the care which you bestowed upon him
once you had saved him, Massignac repented. Thinking of the day of his
death, he tried to atone for a part of his crimes and wrote you that
letter . . . which evidently possesses no legal value, but which you
and I will accept as the truth. You are the daughter of Noel
Dorgeroux, Berangere, of the man whom you always loved as a father
. . . and who wanted us to be married. Will you dream of disobeying
his wishes, Berangere? Do you not think that it is our duty to join
forces and together to complete his enterprise? You know the
indispensable formula. By publishing it, we shall make Noel
Dorgeroux's wonderful life-work endure for ever. Do you consent,
Berangere?"
She did not reply at once; and, when I again tried to convince her, I
saw that she was listening with an absent expression, in which I was
surprised to find a certain anxiety:
"What is it, darling? You accept, do you not?"
"Yes, yes," she said, "but, before everything I must try to jog my
memory. Only think! How careless of me not to have written the
formula down! Certainly, I know it by heart. But, all the same . . ."
She thought for a long time, screwing up her forehead and moving her
lips. Suddenly she said:
"A paper and pencil . . . quickly. . . ."
I handed her a writing-block. Swiftly, with a trembling hand, she
jotted down a few figures. Then she stopped and looked at me with eyes
full of anguish.
I understood the effort which she had made and, to calm her, said:
"Don't rack your brains now . . . it'll come later. . . . What you
need to-day is rest. Go to sleep, my darling."
"I must find it . . . at all costs. . . . I must. . . ."
"You'll find it some other time. You are tired now and excited. Rest
yourself."
She did as I said and ended by falling asleep. But an hour after, she
woke up, took the sheet of paper again and, in a moment or two,
stammered:
"This is dreadful! My brain refuses to work! Oh, but it hurts, it
hurts! . . ."
The night was spent in these vain attempts. Her fever increased. Next
day she was delirious and kept on muttering letters and figures which
were never the same.
For a week, her life was despaired of. She suffered horribly with her
head and wore herself out scribbling lines on her bed clothes.
When she became convalescent and had recovered her consciousness, we
avoided the subject and did not refer to it for some time. But I felt
that she never ceased to think of it and that she continued to seek
the formula. At last, one day, she said with tears in her eyes:
"I have given up all hopes, dear. I repeated that formula a hundred
times after I had learnt it; and I felt sure of my memory. But not a
single recollection of it remains. It must have been when Velmot was
clutching my throat. Everything grew dark, suddenly. I know now that I
shall never remember."
* * * * *
She never did remember. The exhibitions at the Yard were not resumed.
The miraculous visions did not reappear.
And yet what investigations were pursued! How many companies have been
promoted which attempted to exploit the lost secret! But all in vain:
the screen remained lifeless and empty, like a blind man's eyes.
To Berangere and me it would have meant a sorrow incessantly renewed,
if love had not brought us peace and consolation in all things. The
authorities, who showed themselves fairly easy-going, I think, in this
case, never found any traces of the woman who bore the name of
Massignac. I was dispatched on a mission to the Far East. I sent out
for her; and we were married without attracting attention.
We often speak of Noel Dorgeroux's great secret; and if Berangere's
lovely eyes become clouded with sadness:
"Certainly," I say, "the lost secret was a wonderful thing. There was
never anything more thrilling than the Meudon pictures; and those
which we had a right to expect might have opened up horizons which we
are not able to conceive. But are you quite sure that we ought to
regret them? Does a knowledge of the past and the future spell
happiness for mankind? Is it not rather an essential law of our
equilibrium that we should be obliged to live within the narrow
confines of the present and to see before or behind us no more than
lights which are still just glimmering and lights which are being
faintly kindled? Our knowledge is adjusted to our strength; and it is
not good to learn and to decipher too quickly truths to which we have
not had time to adapt our existence and riddles which we do not yet
deserve to know."
Benjamin Prevotelle made no attempt to conceal his disappointment. I
keep up a regular correspondence with him. In every letter that I
receive from this great scientist I anticipate his anxious question:
"Does she remember? May we hope?"
Alas, my answers leave him no illusions:
"Berangere remembers nothing. You must not hope."
He consoles himself by waging a fierce contest with those who still
deny any value to his theory; and it must be confessed that, now that
the screen has been destroyed and it has become impossible to support
that theory by proofs which are in any way material, the number of his
adversaries has increased and that they propound objections which
Benjamin Prevotelle must find it extremely difficult to refute. But he
has every sincere and unprejudiced person on his side.
* * * * *
He likewise has the great public. We all know, of our reasoned
conviction, and we all believe, out of our impulse of ardent faith,
that, though we now receive no communications from our brothers in
Venus, they, those beings with the Three Eyes, are still interesting
themselves in us with the same fervour, the same watchfulness, the
same impassioned curiosity. Looking down upon us, they follow our
every action, they observe us, study us and pity us, they count our
misfortunes and our wounds and perhaps also they envy us, when they
witness our joys and when, in some secret place, they surprise a man
and a maid, with love-laden eyes, whose lips unite in a kiss.
THE END
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=Chinese Label, The.= By J. Frank Davis.
=Christine of the Young Heart.= By Louise Breintenbach Clancy.
=Cinderella Jane.= By Marjorie B. Cooke.
=Cinema Murder, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
=City of Masks, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
=Cleek of Scotland Yard.= By T. W. Hanshew.
=Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
=Cleek's Government Cases.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
=Clipped Wings.= By Rupert Hughes.
=Clutch of Circumstance, The.= By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
=Coast of Adventure, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
=Come-Back, The.= By Carolyn Wells.
=Coming of Cassidy, The.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
=Coming of the Law, The.= By Charles A. Seltzer.
=Comrades of Peril.= By Randall Parrish.
=Conquest of Canaan, The.= By Booth Tarkington.
=Conspirators, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=Contraband.= By Randall Parrish.
=Cottage of Delight, The.= By Will N. Harben.
=Court of Inquiry, A.= By Grace S. Richmond.
=Cricket, The.= By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
=Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.= By Rex Beach.
=Crimson Tide, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=Cross Currents.= By Author of "Pollyanna."
=Cross Pull, The.= By Hal. G. Evarts.
=Cry in the Wilderness, A.= By Mary E. Waller.
=Cry of Youth, A.= By Cynthia Lombardi.
=Cup of Fury, The.= By Rupert Hughes.
=Curious Quest, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
=Danger and Other Stories.= By A. Conan Doyle.
=Dark Hollow, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
=Dark Star, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=Daughter Pays, The.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
=Day of Days, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance.
=Depot Master, The.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
=Destroying Angel, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance.
=Devil's Own, The.= By Randall Parrish.
=Devil's Paw, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
=Disturbing Charm, The.= By Berta Ruck.
=Door of Dread, The.= By Arthur Stringer.
=Dope.= By Sax Rohmer.
=Double Traitor, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
=Duds.= By Henry C. Rowland.
=Empty Pockets.= By Rupert Hughes.
=Erskine Dale Pioneer.= By John Fox, Jr.
=Everyman's Land.= By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
=Extricating Obadiah.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
=Eyes of the Blind, The.= By Arthur Somers Roche.
=Eyes of the World, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.
=Fairfax and His Pride.= By Marie Van Vorst.
=Felix O'Day.= By F. Hopkinson Smith.
=54-40 or Fight.= By Emerson Hough.
=Fighting Chance, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=Fighting Fool, The.= By Dane Coolidge.
=Fighting Shepherdess, The.= By Caroline Lockhart.
=Financier, The.= By Theodore Dreiser.
=Find the Woman.= By Arthur Somers Roche.
=First Sir Percy, The.= By The Baroness Orczy.
=Flame, The.= By Olive Wadsley.
=For Better, for Worse.= By W. B. Maxwell.
=Forbidden Trail, The.= By Honore Willsie.
=Forfeit, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
=Fortieth Door, The.= By Mary Hastings Bradley.
=Four Million, The.= By O. Henry.
=From Now On.= By Frank L. Packard.
=Fur Bringers, The.= By Hulbert Footner.
=Further Adventure of Jimmie Dale.= By Frank L. Packard.
=Get Your Man.= By Ethel and James Dorrance.
=Girl in the Mirror, The.= By Elizabeth Jordan.
=Girl of O. K. Valley, The.= By Robert Watson.
=Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.= By Payne Erskine.
=Girl from Keller's, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
=Girl Philippa, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=Girls at His Billet, The.= By Berta Ruck.
=Glory Rides the Range.= By Ethel and James Dorrance.
=Gloved Hand, The.= By Burton E. Stevenson.
=God's Country and the Woman.= By James Oliver Curwood.
=God's Good Man.= By Marie Corelli.
=Going Some.= By Rex Beach.
=Gold Girl, The.= By James B. Hendryx.
=Golden Scorpion, The.= By Sax Rohmer.
Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the
original edition have been corrected.
On the title page, =Alexander Teixeira deMattos= was changed to =Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos=.
In the table of contents, =Massignac and Velmont= was changed to =Massignac
and Velmot=, and =Chateau= was changed to =Chateau=.
In Chapter I, =inpalpable breath= was changed to =impalpable breath=.
In Chapter V, =hesitation," because= was changed to =hesitation, "because=.
In Chapter VI, =Now do you mean= was changed to =How do you mean=.
In Chapter VIII, the consecutive lines =was to see ten minutes later, he
ran away and= and =went off in the car to pick up Noel Dorgeroux's= were
originally printed in the wrong order.
In Chapter IX, =You shan't move, do you hear, Stay where you are.= was
changed to =You shan't move, do you hear? Stay where you are.=
In Chapter X, =So is Berangere,= was changed to =So is Berangere.= and =The
ondookers had not= was changed to =The onlookers had not=, and a quotation
mark was added after =Why, Victorien!=
In Chapter XIII, =wooden shutter. which was= was changed to =wooden
shutter, which was=.
In Chapter XIV, =50 and 23 degrees respectfully= was changed to =50 and 23
degrees respectively=.
In Chapter XV, =lower benches of the amphi-theatre= was changed to =lower
benches of the amphitheatre=, and =that such airship was ever observed= was
changed to =that no such airship was ever observed=. Also, the consecutive
lines =taken and projected under such conditions that= and =they can
logically be referred to the planet Venus= were originally printed in the
wrong order.
In Chapter XVI, =however strong they might me= was changed to =however
strong they might be=.
In Chapter XVII, =Roman legionaries= was changed to =Roman legionaires=, and
=His Desciples= was changed to =His Disciples=.
In Chapter XVIII, =struggled desparately= was changed to =struggled
desperately=, and =the murder of her godfather= was changed to =the murder
of her god-father=.
In Chapter XIX, =No. to-day= was changed to =No, to-day=, =You ought to have
obeyed him= was changed to =You ought not to have obeyed him=, =The fact
remians= was changed to =The fact remains=, and =in godfather's bedroom= was
changed to =in god-father's bedroom=.
In the list of advertised books, =Honore Willsie= was changed to =Honore
Willsie=.