THE LAST STROKE.
As the solicitor turned toward the newcomer, the man and woman exchanged
glances, and while he was still confident, not to say defiant, he looked
to the unobservant solicitor with a nervous, apprehensive glance, and
leaning toward her would have whispered a word of his anxiety; but she
shook her head, and the next moment the solicitor was naming them to
each other and, as Mr. Myers paused before the lady, continued with the
utmost directness--
"Mr. Myers, this lady denies the existence of any and all American
heirs. She fears you may have been deceived. Do you know this man
Brierly to be living at present?"
"I believe him to be living."
"Mr. Myers," said the lady, sweetly, "I am very sorry to think or say
it, but you have certainly been grossly tricked! If you have seen a
would-be claimant, you have seen a fraudulent one. How long, may I ask,
since you left America?"
"I have been in England for some time, and I will admit, madam, that I
do not quite understand this case in all its details. Still, may it not
be possible that you have been misled? There seem to have been
complications." He checked himself, and appeared to be considering his
next words, then he resumed--"I think I can help to clear up this
misunderstanding. I brought with me here a young man lately from the
United States. He claims to have seen a Mr. Brierly very recently. With
your permission I will ask him to join us."
The Lathams again exchanged swift glances, and the man gave his head a
quick negative shape. But the solicitor went promptly to the door. They
did not hear the brief order he gave the boy, and he did not come back
at once.
"Who is this young American who has seen the invisible? And how came he
here to-day?" asked the man, who was now frowning heavily and moving
restlessly in his seat. "What is his name?"
Mr. Myers had picked up a book off the desk, and was turning its pages
slowly. He seemed hardly to hear the fellow's words.
"He's a very bright young fellow," he said, musingly. "I don't think he
would be easily deceived. He's quite a clever detective, in his way." He
was studying the pair from under bent brows. Just then Mr. Latham's hat
fell from his hands to the floor, and before he had recaptured it, the
solicitor had entered, followed by a serious-faced young man, whom he
carelessly named to the two strangers.
"Mr. Grant."
The lady's hand went suddenly to her heart, and her face was ashen
beneath the dotted veil.
"Are you ill, madam?"
"A twinge," she faltered.
"It's neuralgia," declared the man, drawing his chair toward her. "She's
subject to these sharp attacks. Better, Bessie?"
She nodded, and fixed her eyes upon "Mr. Grant," to whom Mr. Myers was
saying:
"This lady, Grant, is positive that the Brierlys, of whom you have
talked to me, are not now living. There has been tricking somewhere, and
deception. Will you help us to understand one another?" The lawyer's
face had grown very grave.
Francis Ferrars seated himself directly before the woman, whose eyes
never left his face now, and were growing visibly apprehensive.
"There has been more than tricking, worse than deceit here, and if I am
to make it clear to you, madam, I must begin at the beginning. So far,
at least, as I know it."
The woman bent her head slightly. "Go on," said the man. He had never
seen Ferrars either in _propria persona_, or as Ferriss Grant.
The detective began with a brief sketch of the Brierly brothers, and
then described, vividly, the discovery of Charles Brierly's dead body
beside the lake at Glenville. He paused here, and his voice grew stern
as he resumed--
"I had never seen Charles Brierly in life, but, standing beside his dead
body, looking down into that face so lately inspired by a manly, strong
soul, I knew that here was murder. There was no possibility of accident,
and such men, I know, do not cheat death by meeting him half way. It was
a murder, and yet he had no enemies, they said.
"The case interested me from the first, and when I had seen the sorrow
of the fair girl he loved, and who loved him, I gave myself eagerly to
the work of seeking the author of this most cowardly blow.
"That night I walked the streets of Glenville alone, and, passing a
certain fashionable boarding house, I saw, in a room lighted only by the
late moonbeams, the shadow of a woman, who paced the floor with her
bare arms tossing aloft in a pantomime of agony, or shame."
He glanced about him. The two lawyers were standing side by side near
the door, erect and stern. The man in the chair opposite was affecting
an incredulous indifference. The room was intensely still when the voice
ceased and no one stirred or spoke.
"Next morning, early, I viewed the scene of the crime, and I saw how
easily the destroyer might have crept upon an unsuspecting victim, owing
to the formation of the shore, the shelter of the trees and shrubs, and
the protection of the curving Indian Mound. There had been showers two
days before, and in certain spots, where the sun did not penetrate, the
earth was still moist. Under a huge tree, just where the slayer might
have stood, I found the print of a dainty shoe, or rather, the pointed
toe of it. In two other sheltered places I found parts of other
footprints, and, a little off the road, in a clump of underbrush, I
found two well-formed footprints, all alike, small, and pointed at the
toe. But I found something more in that hazel thicket. I found my first
convincing, convicting clue. It was just a shred, a thread of a black
mourning veil, such as widows wear. Later I found a poor simpleton who
had been in the wood on the morning of the murder, and who had been
horribly terrified. For a time he would only cry out that he had seen a
ghost, but by and by he grew more communicative, and from what he then
said--for he described the 'ghost' at last as a thing all white with a
black face--I knew how to account for a white fragment which I found not
far from the black one. A hired carriage had passed over that lakeside
road on that fatal morning, and I learned that the lap cover with it was
'large and white.' Large enough to cover a woman of small stature, who,
with a black veil drawn close across her features, and rising suddenly
from among that clump of hazel, could easily terrify a simpleton into
leaving the place where his presence was a menace."
He paused a moment, but he might as well have been looking upon carven
statues. No one stirred, no one spoke, and he resumed his fateful story.
"Then came the inquest. I believed, even then, that I knew the hand that
took Charles Brierly's life. But I did not know the motive, and, until I
did, my case was a weak one. Besides, a woman sometimes strikes and
still deserves our pity and protection. 'I must know the motive,' I
said, and waited. Then, at the inquest, as Robert Brierly, the brother
of the dead man, whose presence in the town was known to only a few,
came forward to testify, a woman, who did not know him, and whom he did
not know, fainted at sight of him, and was taken out of court. Then I
knew the motive."
"Ah-h-h!" A queer sighing sound escaped the lips of the woman still
sitting stonily erect before him; but he hurried on.
"But knowledge is not always proof--in a court of law--and I must have
proof. That night a woman, dressed as a boy, by courage and cunning
combined, forced her way into the rooms so lately occupied by Charles
Brierly. Fear of detection had begun its work upon her mind, and she
went, most of all, to try and throw justice off the track. In Brierly's
desk she left a letter, very conspicuously placed, an anonymous letter,
so framed as to throw suspicion upon the dead man's betrothed. This
again showed the woman's hand. She also carried away a watch, a pistol,
and some foreign jewellery and dainty _bric-a-brac_, to make the work
seem that of a thief; and last, she found, upon a letter file, a
newspaper clipping, which she also carried away. If she had left that I
might have overlooked its value. As it was, I found the paper from which
it had been cut, secured a second copy, and discovered my clue to the
tangle. It was an advertisement for the heirs of one Hugo Paisley, and I
soon found that the Brierly brothers were the sought-for heirs. Then I
knew that Robert Brierly's life was also menaced, and I warned him, and
tried to set a guard about him.
"In the meantime a boat had been found, not far from the scene of the
shooting; it had been seen on the lake that morning, and its occupant
was a spy, keeping watch up and down the road, and the hillsides, while
his confederate carried out their programme of death. I had already
fixed upon the woman, and now we began to look for the man."
Just here the man calling himself Latham got up stiffly, and moved
toward the window near the clerk's desk, where he leaned against the
casement, as if looking down upon the street. No one seemed to notice
him, and the narrator went on:
"And now I had to find my final convincing proofs of the motive and the
deed. The brothers Brierly were, all unknown to themselves, the heirs to
the Paisley estates, and of Hugo Paisley, by descent. Through some error
the murderers of Charles Brierly had been led to think him the sole
living member of the family, and when Robert Brierly stood forth at the
inquest, the woman who had shot down his brother with hand and heart of
steel, fell fainting at the sight of him, and, perhaps, at the thought
of her wasted crime.
"And now it was a drawn game, in which both sides were forced to move
with caution, and, for a time, I could only watch the woman, on the one
hand, and the safety of Robert Brierly on the other, for he now stood
between the plotters and their goal.
"But despite my watchfulness, the second blow fell, and the first time
Robert Brierly ventured upon the city street alone, after dark, he was
struck down, almost at his own door. It was a dangerous injury, and,
lest the assassins should find a way to complete their work, we took him
away, as soon as he could be moved."
The woman was sitting very erect now, her eyes smouldering behind the
gleaming glasses, her hands tightly clinched upon her knee.
"I knew that we must force the issue, then," Ferrars went on. "And Mr.
Myers came over here to substantiate his client's claim to the Paisley
estates, and to look up the pedigree, the past and present history, of
the other claimants. How well he succeeded need not here be told. He did
succeed."
Mrs. Latham had risen to her feet, and, for a moment, seemed struggling
for composure, and the power to speak clearly.
"All this," she said then, "which is very strange, does not explain why
you dispute my claim in favour of a dead man. As for this murder--if you
have proved what you charge----"
"One moment," Ferrars broke in. "Let me add, in that connection, that
one night one of my agents, in the character of a burglar, entered this
woman's room at her hotel in Glenville. She found in a trunk, the veil
from which the black fragment, found on the bush, was torn; and also a
suit of boy's clothes. The veil she brought away, the clothes were given
away to a poor woman only this morning, and she sold them to my agent.
As for the man, he has been traced by the stolen watch and jewelled
ornaments. He tried to sell, and did pawn, them in Chicago, in New York,
and here in London. In fact the chain of evidence is complete; nothing
more is needed to convict these two."
The woman's face was white and set. "After all," she said in a hollow
voice, "you have not proved that the Paisley estate is not mine by
right. Mr. Brierly, the elder, being dead!"
"Even so, the second wife of Gaston Latham cannot inherit, and her
brother, even in the character of brother-in-law, cannot share the
inheritance. One moment," for the woman seemed about to speak. "Let me
end this. Last night, in room number eight at a certain cafe, I heard
the plotters in conference, and I know that the daughter of Mrs. Cramer,
who would have inherited after the Brierlys, is dead. The game is up,
Mr. Harry Levey. You and your sister have aimed two heavy strokes at
the happiness of two noble women, and the lives of two good men, but the
final stroke is mine! And now, Mrs. Jamieson, if that is----" He did not
finish the sentence. The man Levey had drawn closer and closer to the
inner door, while Ferrars spoke, and now with a swift spring he hurled
himself against it, plunged forward and would have fallen had not
Ferrars, always alert, bounded after him, and caught him as he fell. For
the inner door had opened suddenly, at his touch, and when Ferrars drew
the now struggling man backward, and away from it, the others in the
room saw, in the doorway, a man and woman side by side.
At sight of Robert Brierly's face the woman, who had faced the ordeal of
denunciation and conviction almost without a quiver, threw up her hands,
and uttering a shrill scream, a cry of mortal terror and anguish, fell
forward upon her face.
Then came a moment of excited movement, which would have been confusion
but for the quick wit of Ruth Glidden, and the coolness and energy of
the detective.
While the entrapped villain was struggling like a fiend in the grasp of
four strong men, Ruth knelt beside the fallen woman and lifted her head.
The next moment two or three officers came hastening in, and Ferrars and
Brierly, seeing their captive in safe hands, came together to her aid.
She looked up at them with a questioning face.
"Did you know?" she asked, her face full of horror. "Did you know her?"
Ferrars nodded, and as the officers led their captive, cursing and
blustering, out at one door, he lifted the senseless woman, and carried
her to the couch in the inner room.
"Bring water!" Ruth commanded, "and leave her to me."
As the two men closed the door between them and the two so strangely
different women, Brierly laid a hand upon the detective's shoulder.
"Ferrars," he said, "what did Ruth mean? Who is that terrible woman? And
how is she concerned in your story? It is time I should know the truth."
"Quite time. That woman is Mrs. Jamieson, or the person you knew under
that name. She is cleverly disguised, but I expected some such trick.
She went to 'the States' to rid herself of you and your brother; and she
took that man, who is really her own brother, and who tried to kill you,
as her fellow criminal."
"And did she----" Brierly stopped, shuddering.
"She shot your brother; there is not a doubt of it."
"My God! And I thought----" They were alone in the office, and Brierly
dropped weakly into the nearest chair and dropped his face upon his
hands.
"You thought," finished Ferrars, "that I was interested in the woman. I
was. I suspected her from the very first, and so did Hilda Grant."
In the inner room, Mrs. Jamieson opened her eyes and looked up to meet
the gaze of the fair woman who was in all things what she was not.
Ruth bent over her, a glass of water in her hand.
"Drink this, Mrs. Jamieson," she said simply.
A shudder like a death throe shook the recumbent form. She lifted
herself by one elbow, and caught at the glass, drinking greedily. Then,
still holding the glass, she said slowly:
"Then you know me?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"By your voice, a little, but mostly by what Mr. Ferrars said."
"Mr. Ferrars!" she gasped. "Do you mean him?"
"I mean the man you have called Grant. Did you never guess that he was a
detective?"
"And he knew!" The woman arose to her full height and again, as on a
night long since, and in another country, her arms were tossed above her
head, as Ruth nodded her answer, and for a moment her face was awful to
look upon, so tortured, so despairing, so full of wrath and wretchedness
and soul torture and heart agony, for women can love and suffer, though
their souls be steeped in crime.
Ruth, who had taken the half emptied glass from her hand as she
struggled to her feet, now put it down, and, startled by her look and
manner, moved toward the door, but the woman, her face ghastly, cried
"Stop!" with such agonised entreaty that the girl drew back.
"Don't!--I can't see him yet--Wait!--Let me----" She sank weakly back
upon the couch, and Ruth noted, while turning away for a moment, how her
hand toyed with her dainty watchguard, in seeming self forgetfulness,
drawing forth the little watch, a moment later, and looking at it, as if
the time was now of importance. Then she threw herself back against the
cushions.
"My--vinaigrette--my bag!" she moaned between gasping breaths.
The little bag had been left in the outer office, where it had fallen
from her lap, and Ruth opened the door of communication a little way and
asked for it, saying, as Ferrars came toward her, "Not yet."
As Ruth turned back, she heard a sharp little click, like the quick
shutting of a watch case, and when she held out the vinaigrette, Mrs.
Jamieson was swallowing the remainder of the water in the glass.
"Your salts, Mrs. Jamieson."
The woman looked up with a wild scared look in her eyes, and held out,
for an instant, the little jewelled watch.
"For years," she said, in a slow, strange monotone, "I have faced and
feared danger, and failure. For years I have been prepared! Because of
my cowardice, and my conscience, I have always kept a way of escape."
Her fingers fluttered aimlessly and the watch fell upon her lap. Her
last words seemed to come through stiffening lips. Her face grew
suddenly ghostly gray. Ruth sprang toward the door.
"Don't let him come yet." With these words the dying woman seemed to
collapse, and sank limply back into the cushions; her head drooped, her
chin dropped.
Ruth flung open the door with a cry of terror, and the four men--for the
two lawyers had returned from their escort duty--gathered about the
couch. They saw a shudder pass over the limp frame. The fingers
fluttered again feebly, there was a spasmodic stiffening of the
figure--and that was the end.
Four weeks later, a group of people were standing upon the deck of a
homeward bound steamer, about to set out upon her ocean voyage. They
were five in number, and they were welcoming, each in turn, the man who
had just joined them.
There had been a quiet wedding, a few days before, at a little English
church, and Ruth Glidden had become Ruth Brierly as simply as if she
were not an heiress, and her newly made husband not the owner of English
lands, houses, stocks, and factories, that changed him into a
millionaire.
"I could see no good reason for delay," Brierly was saying, as he
grasped the hand of Ferrars, whose congratulations had been hearty and
sincere. "Neither of us have need to consult aught save our own wishes;
and besides our nearest friends are with us."
"Besides," interposed the smiling woman at his side, "we have been an
encumbrance upon Mr. and Mrs. Myers for so long--and it was really the
only conventional way to relieve them of so many charges. And then"--and
here she lowered her tone, and glanced toward Hilda Grant, who, having
already greeted Ferrars, was standing a little aloof--"we can now make a
home for Hilda, and have a double claim on her."
"In all of which you have done well," smiled Ferrars. "My only regret is
that I must bring into this parting moment an unpleasant element, but
you may as well hear it from me." He beckoned the others to approach;
and, when they were close about him, said, speaking low and gravely:
"'Quarrelsome Harry' has escaped the punishment of the law."
"Escaped!" It was Mr. Myers who repeated the word. "Do you mean----?"
"I mean that he is dead. He was shot while trying to escape. He had
feigned illness so well that they were taking him to the hospital
department. He tried a rush and a surprise, but it ended fatally for
him. He was shot while resisting re-arrest."
"It is better so," said Mr. Myers. "They have been their own
executioners. What could the law have added to their punishment?"
"Only the law's delays," said Ferrars, and then he turned to Hilda
Grant.
"This is not a long good-bye," he said gently. "At least I hope not. I
shall be back in 'the States' soon. And, may I not still find a cousin
there? Or must I stand again outside the barrier alone?"
"You will always find an affectionate cousin," said Hilda, putting out
her hand.
And now it was time to leave the ship. All around them was the hurry of
delayed farewells, the bustle of late comers, the shifting of baggage,
smiles, tears, last words.
Ferrars would remain for a time in London, but he knew, as he answered
to the call "all ashore," that when he returned to the United States he
would find in one of her fair western cities, a warm welcome and a
lasting friendship.
The plot, by which the beautiful tigress-hearted woman whom they had
known as Mrs. Jamieson had hoped to achieve riches, was cleverly
planned. The real claimant had died in a remote place, and there were no
near friends to look after her interests, or those of her young
children. And then Harry Levey's sister, beautiful, and an adventuress,
from choice, like her brother, had beguiled Gaston Latham, and had, by
frequent changes of abode, by cunning, and by fraud, merged her own
personality into that of the former wife. Then had come the baffling
discovery of heirs in America, the plotting and scheming to remove them
from their path--and the shameful end.
"Ferrars is a strange fellow," said Robert Brierly to his wife, one
moonlight night, as they sat together, and somewhat aloof from the
others on deck. "Do you know he was the sole attendant, except for her
servants, at that woman's burial. He went in a carriage alone. Was it
from sentiment, or sympathy, think you?"
It was the first time the dead woman had been spoken of, by either,
since that trying day of her exposure and death, and Ruth was silent a
moment, before she answered; the awful scene coming vividly before her.
Then she put her hand within her husband's arm, and said, slowly,
softly:
"It was because he is a good man; because she was a woman without a
friend, and because she loved him."
There was a long silence, and it was Ruth who next spoke.
"Have you ever thought, or hoped, that the friendship and trust that has
grown out of Hilda's relation to Mr. Ferrars might, sometime, end in
something more?"
"No, dear, and this is why: Yesterday, Ferrars said to me 'There is a
friend over in Glenville whom I hope you will not forget. Let him be
your guest. And, if the day should come when your sweet sister that was
to be should enter society and be sought by others, give the doctor his
chance. He has loved her from the first.'"
Ruth sighed.
"Hilda is too young to go through the world loveless and alone. Yes, and
too sweet. And the doctor is a noble man. But all this we may safely
leave to the future, and to their own hearts."
THE END.
The Gresham Press,
UNWIN BROTHERS,
WOKING AND LONDON.
* * * * *
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+ARTHUR MORRISON.+
+Martin Hewitt, Investigator.+ By the author of "Tales of Mean
Streets," etc. With about _Fifty Illustrations_ by SYDNEY PAGET.
Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +_5s._+
"Most people like tales of this sort, ... and no one writes them better
than Mr. Morrison does. The narratives are written not only with
ingenuity, but with conviction, which is, perhaps, even the more
valuable quality."--_Globe._
+Chronicles of Martin Hewitt.+ Being the Second Series of "Martin
Hewitt, Investigator." With _Thirty Illustrations_ by D. MURRAY
SMITH. Crown 8vo, art canvas, +_5s._+
"Certainly the most ingenious and entertaining of the numerous
successors of Sherlock Holmes. There is not one of the stories in this
collection that is not ingeniously constructed and cleverly
written."--_The Academy._
+Adventures of Martin Hewitt.+ Being the Third Series of "Martin
Hewitt, Investigator." With _Thirty-five Illustrations_ by T. S. C.
CROWTHER. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +_5s._+
The remarkable reception given by both press and public to "Martin
Hewitt, Investigator," and "Chronicles of Martin Hewitt," is sufficient
guarantee that this third series of the adventures of that astute
detective will be warmly welcomed.
+MAX PEMBERTON.+
+Jewel Mysteries I Have Known.+ By the author of "The Iron Pirate,"
"A Gentleman's Gentleman," etc. With _Fifty Illustrations_ by R.
CATON WOODVILLE and FRED BARNARD. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt edges,
+_5s._+
"The most interesting and entrancing 'mystery' stories that have
appeared since the publication of the doings of Mr. Sherlock
Holmes."--_The Literary World._
"Mr. Pemberton has attempted a great deal more than to give mere plots
and police cases, and he has succeeded in capturing our attention from
the first story to the last."--_The Bookman._
+FRANCIS PREVOST.+
+Rust of Gold.+ Crown 8vo, art canvas, +_5s._+
"A series of nine _fin de siecle_ stories of great power and
picturesqueness.... As word-pictures they are simply
masterpieces."--_Daily Telegraph._
+On the Verge.+ Crown 8vo, art canvas, +_5s._+
"'Rust of Gold' was good, but 'On the Verge' is better."--_Star._
+HENRY KINGSLEY.+
New Library Edition of Henry Kingsley's Novels. Edited by CLEMENT
K. SHORTER. Well printed (from type specially cast) on good paper,
and neatly and handsomely bound. With Frontispieces by eminent
Artists. Price +_3s. 6d._+ per volume, cloth gilt.
1. +The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn.+ With a _Photogravure
Portrait_ of Henry Kingsley, and a _Memoir_ by CLEMENT K. SHORTER.
Illustrated by HERBERT RAILTON.
2. +Ravenshoe.+ With Frontispiece by R. CATON WOODVILLE.
3. +The Hillyars and the Burtons.+ With a Note on Old Chelsea
Church by CLEMENT K. SHORTER. Illustrated by HERBERT RAILTON.
4. +Silcote of Silcotes.+ With Frontispiece by LANCELOT SPEED.
5. +Stretton.+ With Frontispiece by GEORGE M. HENTON.
6. +Austin Elliot,+ and +The Harveys.+ With _Frontispiece_ by
WALTER PAGET.
7. +Mdlle. Mathilde.+ With Frontispiece by HOLLAND TRINGHAM.
8. +Old Margaret,+ and other Stories. With _Frontispiece_ by ROBERT
SAUBER.
9. +Valentin,+ and +Number Seventeen.+ With _Frontispiece_ by R.
CATON WOODVILLE.
10. +Oakshott Castle,+ and +The Grange Garden.+ With _Frontispiece_
by W. H. OVEREND.
11. +Reginald Hetherege,+ and +Leighton Court.+ With _Frontispiece_
by GORDON BROWNE.
12. +The Boy in Grey,+ and other Stories. With _Frontispiece_ by A.
FORESTIER.
"Henry Kingsley was born to wear the purple of romance.... Where will
anyone who is ordinary and sane find better comradeship? Scarcely
outside the novels of Walter Scott.... Messrs. Ward, Lock and Co.'s
edition of this despotic and satisfying romancer is cheap and well
printed, and comfortable to hold. Those who love Kingsley will love him
again and better for this edition, and those who have not loved have a
joy in store that we envy them."--_The National Observer._
"To Mr. Clement Shorter and to the publishers the unreserved thanks of
the public are warmly due; there can be no finer mission from the world
of fiction to the world of fact than the putting forth of these
ennobling novels afresh and in a fitting form."--_The Daily Chronicle._
"To renew your acquaintance with Henry Kingsley is for Henry Kingsley to
stand forth victorious all along the line. His work, in truth, is moving
and entertaining now as it was moving and entertaining thirty odd years
ago."--_The Pall Mall Gazette._
+WILLIAM LE QUEUX.+
+A Secret Service.+ Being Strange Tales of a Nihilist. By the
author of "The Great War," "Zoraida." With _Frontispiece_ by
HAROLD PIFFARD. Crown 8vo, cloth, +_3s. 6d._+
"Apart altogether from its political interest, "A Secret Service" will
be read and appreciated for its brightly-written stories of mystery and
sensation and romance which are threaded together in the narrative of
Anton Prehzner."--_Daily Mail._
+ANNIE E. HOLDSWORTH.+
+Spindles and Oars.+ By the author of "The Years that the Locust
hath Eaten." Crown 8vo, cloth, with _Special Title Page,_ +_3s.
6d._+
Miss Holdsworth has written a delightful series of Scottish Idylls,
which can only be compared with the work of Mr. J. M. Barrie and "Ian
Maclaren." They are full of tender pathos and quaint humour, and are
sure to sustain the reputation she has already made.
+J. E. MUDDOCK.+
+Stormlight;+ or, the Nihilist's Doom. A Story of Switzerland and
Russia. With _Two Full-page Illustrations_ by GORDON BROWNE. Crown
8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, +_3s. 6d._+
"The work has a strong plot, exciting situations, and a certain truth to
history, that make it full of interest."--_The Scotsman._
"A thrilling tale, chock full of sensational incidents."--_Liverpool
Post._
+ADA CAMBRIDGE.+
+A Humble Enterprise.+ By the author of "The Three Miss Kings,"
"Fidelis," "A Marked Man," etc. With _Four Full-page Illustrations_
by ST. CLAIR SIMMONS. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +_3s. 6d._+
"It is a delightful story, refreshingly original, singularly well told,
and absorbingly interesting from beginning to end."--_Daily Mail._
"A pretty, graceful story, and one to leave, so to speak, a clean taste
in one's mouth; such dishes are rarely served to the public."--_Pall
Mall Gazette._
+MARY TENNYSON.+
+The Fool of Fate.+ By the author of "Friend Perditus." Crown 8vo,
cloth, +_6s._+
"Although sad in tone, this book is exceedingly clever and well
written.... The book is not loaded with psychological analysis, but the
incidents are mainly allowed to speak for themselves, and the work is a
clever, clear, and consistent character study."--_Bristol Mercury._
+BERTRAM MITFORD.+
+The Expiation of Wynne Palliser.+ A Novel of Contrast. By the
author of "The King's Assegai," etc. With _Two Full-page
Illustrations_ by STANLEY L. WOOD. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +_3s.
6d._+
Readers who wish to have a realistic picture of the South African life,
concerning which recent events have aroused such interest, should not
fail to get Mr. Mitford's new work. It brings the whole scene before the
reader's eye with startling vividness, and is an intensely interesting
story as well.
+The Curse of Clement Waynflete:+ A Story of Two South African
Wars. With _Four Full-page Illustrations_ by STANLEY L. WOOD.
Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +_3s. 6d._+
"Telling us wonderful incidents of inter-racial warfare, of ambuscades,
sieges, surprises, and assaults almost without number.... A thoroughly
exciting story, full of bright descriptions and stirring
episodes."--_The Daily Telegraph._
+A Veldt Official:+ A Novel of Circumstance. With _Two Full-page
Illustrations_ by STANLEY L. WOOD. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +_3s.
6d._+
"We have seldom come across a more thrilling narrative. From start to
finish Mr. Mitford secures unflagging attention."--_Leeds Mercury._
+A. CONAN DOYLE.+
_THE FIRST BOOK ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES._
+A Study in Scarlet.+ By the author of "The White Company," etc.
With _Forty Illustrations_ by GEORGE HUTCHINSON. Crown 8vo, cloth
gilt, gilt top, +_3s. 6d._+
"One of the cleverest and best detective stories we have yet seen....
Mr. Conan Doyle is a literary artist, and this is a good specimen of his
skill."--_London Quarterly Review._
"Few things have been so good of late as Mr. Conan Doyle's 'Study in
Scarlet.'"--Mr. Andrew Lang, in _Longman's Magazine._
+THOMAS HENEY.+
+The Girl at Birrell's.+ With _Frontispiece_ by T. S. C. CROWTHER.
Crown 8vo, cloth, +_3s. 6d._+
"The attraction of the book, which is considerable, lies in the vivid
picture it gives of life on a huge portion of a huge pastoral estate in
Australia."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
"Apart from the excellence of telling, the accurate local colour of 'The
Girl at Birrell's' renders it valuable."--_Black and White._
+OUTRAM TRISTRAM.+
+The Dead Gallant;+ together with +"The King of Hearts."+ With
_Full-page Illustrations_ by HUGH THOMSON and ST. GEORGE HARE.
Crown 8vo, art linen, gilt, +_5s._+
"Both stories are well written in faultless English, and display a
knowledge of history, a careful study of character, and a fine
appreciation of a dramatic point, all too rare in these days of slipshod
fiction."--_National Observer._
+HEADON HILL.+
+The Rajah's Second Wife.+ A Story of Missionary Life and Trial in
India. By the author of "Zambra the Detective," "Cabinet Secrets,"
etc. With _Two Full-page Illustrations_ by WALER S. STACEY. Crown
8vo, cloth gilt. +_3s. 6d._+
"Will assuredly be read with the deepest interest.... The novel, as a
whole, is one that will be read with genuine pleasure."--_The Scotsman._
+The Divinations of Kala Persad.+ With _Two Full-page
Illustrations_ by STANLEY L. WOOD. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt,
+_3s. 6d._+
"Distinctly worth having. 'The Divinations of Kala Persad,' so far as
the book relates to that remarkable man, have a novelty that is
refreshing."--_The Spectator._
"The stories in this book are well told and interesting, and have the
charm of freshness."--_St. James's Gazette._
+The Queen of Night.+ With _Frontispiece_ by HAROLD PIFFARD. Crown
8vo, cloth gilt, +_3s. 6d._+
No one who is familiar with the work of Mr. Headon Hill will dispute
that in "The Queen of Night" is to be found the most skilful and
enthralling detective story he has yet done. The idea is absolutely
original, and is worked out with breathless interest and unusual power.
From first to last it holds the reader's attention.
+MAGGIE SWAN.+
+A Neglected Privilege:+ The Story of a Modern Woman. By the author
of "A Late Awakening," etc. With _Two Full-page Illustrations_ by
STEPHEN REID. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +_3s. 6d._+
Readers of Annie Swan and Silas Hocking will find a story to their
liking in Maggie Swan's new novel, "A Neglected Privilege." It is a pure
and wholesome tale, told with as much skill as characterises the work of
her longer known sister. Every lover of pure literature will enjoy this
charming tale.
+A Late Awakening.+ With _Two Full-page Illustrations_ by ST. CLAIR
SIMMONS. Square fcap. 8vo, cloth elegant, gilt top, price +_2s.
6d._+
"'A Late Awakening' is both pretty and pathetic. Miss Swan has a
distinct faculty for describing wild scenery in the Scottish islands and
for realistically painting the life led by people in the lonely villages
thereon. Her characters are excellent."--_The Star._