Three weeks passed very quietly for George Lauriston and his wife
without any markedly apparent result of the doctor’s visit, except
that George, trying to shake off the lethargy into which he had sunk
since his imprisonment, had put himself into harness for a new battle
with fortune by writing articles on the condition of the army for a
local paper. He also took a journey to London to fulfil his
long-promised revenge upon Rahas, and would probably have got himself
into fresh trouble by using other than legal means of chastisement
upon the Arabian, if that ingenious gentleman had not just got into a
little difficulty with the excise officers over a large consignment of
choice tobacco which was more than suspected of having paid no duty,
and some silver goods not up to standard, the hall-mark on which had
been forged, which forced him to leave the land of his adoption for
shores where genius is more respected.
Both George and Nouna for a long time refrained from mentioning her
mother’s name, and it was with some emotion that they both recognised
her handwriting one day outside a letter directed to the husband, the
postmark of which was Bath. George took it away to read, and Nouna
made no remark, but when he came back to her, holding it open in his
hand, he found that she was trembling with intense excitement. She
took it from him with a passionately anxious glance, but gathered
comfort from his gravely smiling face.
Nouna then read these words:
“My dear Mr. Lauriston,
“I am writing to make a request which I pray you will generously
grant. I know there are differences between us which would make
another meeting undesirable and perhaps painful to both, I would not
suggest that we should see each other again: but I implore you to let
me see my daughter just once more. Six months ago I could have claimed
this as a right, or I would have contrived it by a trick. But I have
learnt to respect you, and I only ask. I am a different woman, I have
grown old, I am changed, you would not mind her coming now--I swear
it. Lord F. has been very generous, and I want nothing but just one
more look at my daughter. Let her come and see the Condesa di
Valdestillas, that is the name I bear here, and shall bear to the end
of my life. A foreign title covers whatever of eccentricity is left in
“Yours very sincerely,
“Lakshmi di Valdestillas.”
Nouna was crying quietly as she finished. She clung to her husband’s
arm.
“Must I go?” she whispered.
“Oh, yes,” said George promptly. “She has always loved you, Nouna; I
will write to tell her you are coming.”
“Oh, George, George,” panted the little creature in the same low
voice, “I feel so wicked for not wanting to go! But all my heart has
turned to you now, and I can’t get the old feeling back.”
He clasped his hands round her shoulders.
“But you will, Nounday, you will have just the feeling that is right
when you see her all by herself, lonely, waiting for you whom she has
always loved better than anything in the world.”
All the sting had now gone out of his feelings towards the creature
who, with all her odd mixture of coarseness and refinement, corruption
and generosity, had lived to see the very virtues she had fostered in
her child turn against her in the loneliness of her premature age. For
George had learnt from Lord Florencecourt, who ran down to Plymouth
two or three times to see him and Nouna, to whom he was beginning to
be reconciled, that Chloris White had indeed retired from her old
life, broken up and suddenly middle-aged, and had fixed her retreat in
the pretty old city of Bath, where she lived safe from recognition in
a colony of what the Colonel irreverently called “old tabbies,”
feeling neither contrition for the past nor discontent with the
present, and passing her time, with a serenity born of dulled
faculties and worn-out energies, in petty charities and petty scandal.
Two days after the receipt of the letter George arrived with Nouna in
Bath, left her at the door of her mother’s residence, a small,
well-kept house in a quiet street, and walked up and down outside
until she should rejoin him. When she reappeared at the door she was
very serious, and she beckoned him to come up the steps to her.
“Mamma wishes--to say--good-bye to you,” she said in a tremulous
voice.
Standing aside she let George see a bent figure, dressed in black,
with greyish hair, and a wan dark face, who raised her great black
burning eyes, but not with the old boldness, to his face. He took his
hat off, and held out his hand. The lean little dark fingers she put
into his were shaking.
“Good-bye, Mr. Lauriston. I shall not see you again. It has made me
happy to see you. Remember when you think of me that I had no
chance--from the beginning. But I kept my child pure, and so God sent
you to her. I dare not bless you, but I thank you; if I were better I
would pray for you. Good-night. Good-bye.”
The long evening shadows were creeping over the quiet streets, as
George and his wife, walking slowly away, caught the final glimpse of
a pale, drawn face, and great eyes like flaming fires, straining in
the gloom for a last look at them. Nouna was very quiet, but she was
much happier than she had been in coming.
“George,” she said in a low voice, “I can think about her and love her
now just as I used to do. When may I see her again? She would not tell
me.”
And George could not tell her either, though he gave her a ready
assurance that she should come whenever she was summoned; for he had a
shrewd suspicion that, in spite of Lord Florencecourt’s belief that
she was happy and contented, the restless spirit of the reputed
Countess was untamed still, and chafed in secret under the new bonds
of broken health, changed habits, and disappointed ambition. Two days
later this suspicion was confirmed, when he received the tidings,
conveyed to him only, of the sudden end of the Condesa di
Valdestillas, who had been found dead in her bed from an overdose of a
sleeping-draught. But as she left a sealed letter for George with
instructions to keep the news of her death from her daughter until
Nouna was stronger, full of passionate thanks to him, and equally
passionate regrets that she might not leave what she possessed to her
child, he was not deceived, though he was the only person who ever
knew the secret.
Poor Sundran, who was with her mistress to the last, implored George,
who went at once to Bath on learning the tidings, to let her come back
to her darling Missee Nouna. And as he was sure enough now of his
influence over his wife no longer to dread that of the black woman, he
promised that, at no distant time, she should return to her service.
On hearing that the “Condesa di Valdestillas” was dead, Lord
Florencecourt, finally relieved from his fears, openly acknowledged
Nouna as his daughter “by a former wife,” as indeed poor Chloris,
thinking over the position of affairs on the eve of her first and last
attempt at reparation, had foreseen that he would do, and settled a
handsome allowance upon her. He came down to Plymouth in the last week
of May to make this determination known to his son-in-law. He was
accompanied by his niece Ella, who was in a state of strong but
subdued excitement, but who gave no reason which her uncle could
consider adequate for her entreaty that she might thus leave London
for a few days in the height of the gaieties of the season.
On their arrival in Plymouth, Ella chose to remain alone at the hotel
while the Colonel went to call upon the Lauristons. He thought this
decision very extraordinary; but on his return a light came to him;
for in the sitting-room, standing close by his niece’s side, and
bending over her to speak with a passionate earnestness which seemed
to infect the usually self-contained girl, was Clarence Massey. They
both started guiltily on Lord Florencecourt’s entrance, and Clarence
shook with nervousness as he greeted him. Ella rushed at her uncle,
and asked about the health of the invalids with great vivacity and
interest.
“What were you talking about when I came in?” asked the Colonel
bluntly, when he had informed her that George and Nouna were neither
better nor worse than they had been three weeks ago.
“We were talking about them--about the Lauristons,” answered Ella.
And Clarence echoed her words. The Colonel looked from the one to the
other incredulously. His niece seized both his hands impulsively, with
a light-hearted laugh.
“We must tell you--it’s a great secret, but it’s coming out now, and
you shall be the first to hear it,” said she.
Then she made him sit down, and told him, rather breathlessly, a long
story, to which Clarence played Chorus, and to which the Colonel
listened with amazement, admiration, and something like consternation
too.
“And who’s to pay for it all?” he asked at last in bewilderment.
“Oh, we’ve arranged all that,” said Ella airily.
Again Clarence echoed, “We’ve arranged all that.”
And this astonishing unanimity naturally led Lord Florencecourt to a
conclusion the expression of which would have filled Ella with the
loftiest indignation. In the meantime, having been informed of the
plot, he was pressed into the service of the conspirators, and that
evening, when it had grown dark, they all three went to the house
where the Lauristons were staying, and the Colonel entered, leaving
the two young people to walk up and down outside in a state of
breathless expectancy.
“Break it gently!” was Ella’s last injunction as he left them.
Lord Florencecourt found his way up stairs to his son-in-law’s
sitting-room in a state of great nervousness. He found George and
Nouna, pale, thin, and languid as ever, the former sitting at the
table, writing, while his tiny wife, curled up on the sofa with a
large ball of wool, some long wooden pins, and a small, misshapen
piece of work which was the result of many evenings’ labour, flattered
herself that she was knitting. They were both surprised by this second
visit from the Colonel, and by the fact that now he had come he seemed
to have nothing to say.
“What are you doing?” he asked Nouna at last.
“I’m making George a comforter,” she answered proudly. “I can’t be
idle while my husband’s at work.”
“Well, it keeps you quiet at any rate,” he observed injudiciously, a
glance at the comforter having convinced him that if ever it should be
finished and worn it would belie its name. The Colonel fidgeted for a
few moments, and the young people began to assume an attitude of
expectancy, perceiving that something was to come of this unusual
restlessness. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to leave Plymouth--to go
anywhere--to--India, for instance,” he blurted out at last.
Nouna sprang up with a cry, a great light in her eyes. George’s face
flushed; he crossed the room and came to support his wife, who was
tottering.
“Why does he say it? why does he say it? It can’t be true, oh, it
can’t be true!” sobbed she, burying her face in his breast.
“What does it mean, Colonel? Are you serious?” asked George in a
hoarse voice.
He hated England just now, sore and beaten down as he still felt, but
he had felt that to run away from it was cowardly, even if he had been
able to afford it. This suggestion of change for himself and joy for
Nouna therefore came upon his heart like a ray of bright light in the
dead grey level of their languid lives.
“Make all your preparations to-night,” said the Colonel, “for you will
have to start to-morrow.”
And, as if afraid of committing himself by any explanation, he left
the room, and darted out of the house like a lad before they had time
to stop him. In the street Ella and Clarence met him, full of
excitement.
“Well?” said they at the same time, both quivering with excitement.
“It’s all right. I told them--just enough and no more. I said it
rather suddenly perhaps, but I was afraid they’d ask questions.
They’re to be ready to start to-morrow, I said. You couldn’t have
managed better yourself, Ella. They were delighted, absolutely
delighted.”
The Colonel was right. To these two beings, whose hearts and minds
were still scarcely as convalescent as their bodies after the trials
of the preceding few months, the suggestion of this great change came
as the grant of a new bright life to them. Nouna, in particular, was
half crazy with delight, and seemed to recover in a moment all her
lost vivacity, as she babbled of palms and sunshine, palaces with
stately domes and graceful minarets, of elephants with rich trappings,
birds with bright plumage, and dark depths of jungle where the tiger
was known to lurk, and where every step was hedged with fascinating
peril. That night she scarcely slept, and next morning, when Lord
Florencecourt again made his appearance, accompanied this time by
Ella, he was quite bewildered by the change in his daughter’s looks.
Ella herself, although very quiet, was almost as much excited, as she
asked whether they were ready. George, with dull masculine
pertinacity, worried everybody by asking for details of the journey
for which they had so hastily prepared; but at last perceiving, by the
evasive answers he got, that some surprise was intended, he was in the
end content to hold his tongue, and to wait patiently till the proper
time should bring enlightenment. Arrangements had been made, they were
told, for the transport of their luggage, and they had nothing to do
but to start in the company of Ella and the Colonel. They set out on
foot, which was one astonishing thing, and they were taken in the
direction of the Hoe, which was another. It was a beautiful, bright
May morning. From the seat by the camera obscura they all stood for a
moment, looking down at the water, when suddenly Nouna burst forth
into a cry of admiration at the sight of a beautiful yacht which was
anchored half-way between the shore and Drake’s Island.
“When did it come?” she cried with much interest. “It wasn’t here
yesterday. What a beautiful little thing!”
“Little thing!” cried Lord Florencecourt, with untimely impetuosity.
“Why it’s 150 tons; big enough to go round the world in!”
Then an awkward silence fell upon everybody, for, vulgarly speaking,
the cat was out of the bag. And the conversation was kept up with
difficulty until, descending the cliff, they all came to the little
landing-pier, where a small boat was waiting with Clarence Massey
standing up in it, waving his hat frantically and beaming with
unspeakable enthusiasm. Neither George nor Nouna asked any questions
now; and they all got into the little boat in a state of surprising
silence, and were rowed straight out towards the beautiful yacht
without anybody’s remarking upon the strangeness of the circumstance.
But as they drew near her, Nouna caught sight of the name, painted in
bright gold letters on the stern--“Scheherazade.” She touched her
husband’s arm, and made him read it too. Before he could speak, they
were close under the yacht, and Lord Florencecourt was leading the way
on board. Nouna climbed up next like a cat, and the rest followed
quickly.
Then Ella took the young wife by the hand, and, leaving the three men
on the deck, led her on a tour of inspection. The yacht was a tiny
floating palace, fitted up by the dainty taste of one woman to suit
the luxurious fancy of another. The rooms were hung with rich
tapestry, and with delicate China silks embroidered in gold and pale
colours. The woodwork was painted with birds and flowers on a
background of faint grey landscape. The bed-room was fitted up with
satin-wood, and hung with rose-coloured silk; while in order that
George might have a corner better suited to masculine taste in this
dainty little craft, a very small room, dark with old oak and
serviceable leather, had been appointed for him as a study. Every
corner of the yacht held something beautiful and curious: skins of
white bears, mounted in maroon velvet; carvings in ivory, securely
fixed on dark brackets that showed off their lacelike outlines;
treasures in bronze, in delicate porcelain, in exquisitely tinted
glass from Salviati’s, met the eyes at every turn. The whole
furnishing and fitting of the little vessel, down to the choice of
silver-gilt teaspoons from Delhi and a lamp which was said to have
been dug up at Pompeii, had clearly been a labour of love.
Nouna was overwhelmed; she walked along with her hand in Ella’s,
scarcely uttering a sound, until at last she heard the words whispered
in her ear: “This is a present for you--all for you, with my love. You
are to make good use of it, and be very happy in it. No”--she stopped
Nouna, who was breaking into tears, and incoherent, passionate
thanks--“you may thank me when you and your husband both come sailing
back strong and rosy and well.”
Nouna smiled at her with glistening eyes as she put her little hands
round the girl’s shoulders.
“I can’t thank you, I can scarcely try. You were born to be a good
fairy to everybody. Kiss me, kiss me hard, and give me some of your
own sweetness that I may be a better wife.”
When they came on deck again they were both very quiet; and George,
who had in the meantime learnt that this fairy yacht was a present to
his wife, and also that, in common with the fairy presents of
tradition, for a whole year at least it would entail no expense upon
its owner, could do nothing but shake Ella’s hand warmly and murmur
some incoherent words.
All the visitors on board now felt that their task was done. The
luggage was on board, the steam was up, the hands were ready to hoist
the anchors; and both George and Nouna showed signs of having suffered
as much excitement as their still weak frames could bear. Lord
Florencecourt, Ella and Clarence took their leave quickly, descended
from the yacht into the little boat, and rowed away in the sunshine,
while the young husband and wife waved them good-bye.
“Where are we going to, George?” asked Nouna, when the little boat had
reached the pier, and the passengers were landed.
“Just where you like. You are its mistress, you know.”
She drew a long breath of pleasure.
“Tell the captain to go, as quickly as possible, to some place--nearer
than India--where there are palms and blue skies, and bright birds.”
George obeyed, and, coming back, told her that they were going first
to Malta. She was satisfied, considering that Valetta was a pretty
name, and remembering she had heard the air was good for people with
weak lungs.
“Yes, yes, let us go to Malta, George, and there you will get well,”
said she.
And she drew him towards a pretty little pavilion which had been
erected on the deck. The hanging curtains were crimson and gold, and
could be looped back to command a view of the sea in any direction.
“Why didn’t Ella take me in there?” she said.
“Perhaps it contains some great treasure which she kept as a _bonne
bouche_ at the last,” suggested he, smiling.
Already she had an inkling of the truth, and when she tore back the
nearest curtain and found, kneeling on the ground on a leopard’s skin
among white silken cushions which were to support her young mistress’s
head, the old servant Sundran trembling with joy, she gave way, and
fell sobbing into the Indian woman’s arms.
“Oh, George, George,” she whispered passionately, springing up again
to her husband’s side, “Ella must have an angel from heaven hovering
about her to whisper to her just what will make people happiest!
Aren’t you afraid of waking up and finding it isn’t real?”
“No, Nounday,” said he, tenderly, but with a thoughtful face; “I’d
rather think that we have been in a dreary, feverish sleep, and that
we are sent away to wake us up to life again!”
Ten minutes later the anchor was weighed, and they were steaming out
towards the breakwater and the open sea.
Meanwhile Ella and Clarence had engaged a small, swift boat to row
them across to the foot of Mount Edgecumbe Park; and climbing at a
great pace up the steep road that skirts the walls, they got into the
field below Maker Church to get a last glimpse of the yacht. They were
in time to see clearly against the blue of sea and sky the bright-hued
pavilion with its curtains thrown back, and a group of scarcely
distinguishable figures underneath.
“Yes--yes, I can see them--I can see them, George and Nouna and
Sundran, too!” said Clarence excitedly.
Ella was shorter-sighted, stamped her foot with impatience because she
could not make them out, and was fain to be content with watching the
yacht until it was a mere speck. At last she could scarcely see it,
for her eyes grew dim with rising tears. Clarence had now time to feel
angrily jealous of her interest in the vessel.
“Poor little girl! Poor little Nouna!” she said at last. “How white
and worn she looks still, so different from the brilliant little
creature who came to us at Maple Lodge!”
“Perhaps she will die and leave him free,” said Clarence rather
bitterly.
But Ella’s expression changed to one of sincerest anxiety.
“Oh, no, indeed I hope she won’t! It would break his heart!” she said.
“I thought you considered her such an inappropriate wife for him?”
Ella reddened. She had thought so once, and she thought so no longer;
but when and how her thoughts and feelings on the subject had changed,
she hardly knew.
“It is very difficult to judge accurately in such matters. You see
it’s impossible to deny that they’re passionately fond of each other,
and you mustn’t judge of the chances of a marriage by the way it came
about, you know.”
“No,” said Clarence, interested, “marriage is an odd thing.”
“Well,” said Ella brusquely, “we must be getting back now.”
“Won’t you wait till the yacht’s out of sight?”
Ella stopped and looked out to sea again, but she dug the end of her
sunshade into the ground with nervous impatience.
“I’m so sorry it’s all over; we’ve had such a jolly time getting it
all ready, haven’t we?” said he sentimentally.
“Oh, yes, well enough,” she answered rather crossly, feeling herself
an unpleasant void at the heart which she feared might lead to some
foolish exhibition of weakness.
“It was an interest in life, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, but there are plenty more left.”
“For you, yes, because you’re so good.”
“Nonsense, I’m no better than you might be if you liked. It was your
money that did most of it, remember. I assure you I don’t forget the
obligation.”
“Now, Ella, don’t be ridiculous. What do I care about the miserable
money?”
“You’d care a great deal, if you were wise. A rich man who makes
himself comparatively poor by the good things he does with his money
is a fine fellow.”
Clarence cleared his throat two or three times, and began to shake
violently.
“Do you--do you think, Ella,” he began at last huskily, “that you’d
ever--care to--care to--make a fine fellow--of me?”
Ella turned sharply about and faced him.
“Can’t you do it for yourself?” she asked loftily.
Clarence shook his head.
“Now you know I can’t,” he pleaded gently. Then, as she made no
answer, he looked out to sea again, and saw that the _Scheherazade_
was dwindling to a little grey point on the horizon. “Now I’ll give
you till the yacht is out of sight to make up your mind,” said he.
Then they both looked at the vanishing speck. The moments passed, and
neither spoke, though they could hear and almost feel the beating of
each other’s heart, and though each felt the silence to be desperately
disconcerting.
“It’s gone!” said he.
“No, it isn’t!” cried she.
Both were growing intensely excited. Ella opened her eyes wider and
wider, and strained them to the utmost. Clarence tried to speak, but
she stopped him by thrusting out her hand right in front of him,
holding her breath. He looked down at it for a couple of seconds, and
then ventured to take it very gently in his right hand, and to put his
left on her shoulder. When he had remained in this position for a few
moments, she drew a long breath, and blinked her eyes violently.
“Don’t cry,” said Clarence soothingly, and he stooped and kissed her.
“I haven’t answered you,” she objected, raising her shoulder
pettishly.
“Never mind that now. Let me comfort you, and you shall answer me by
and by.”
But Ella still looked persistently out to sea.
“The yacht’s quite gone now,” she said in a disconsolate voice, “and
with it your twenty thousand pounds. I suppose, from a strictly
business point of view, I owe you some compensation.”
“Well, twenty thou is twenty thou,” said Clarence, whose spirits were
rising.
Ella raised her hand to her chin reflectively, a little beam of
mischief coming into her eyes.
“On the whole,” she said at last musingly, making no further objection
to the encroachments of her companion’s arm, “considering that I’m the
ugly duckling of the family, perhaps I might have made a worse
bargain! And to tell you the truth, Clarence,” she added presently in
a gentler voice, with a touch of shyness, when he had made her seal
the contract with a kiss for each thousand, “if you had gone your way
and I had gone mine after the way you behaved over that yacht, I--I
should have missed you awfully!”
The sun was growing hot over the land and over the sea, and a dim
white haze seemed to soften the line between blue sky and blue ocean,
as they stood still side by side under the tower of old Maker Church,
savouring of the strange sweetness of having crowned an old romance
and laid the foundation of a new one with the fitting up of the yacht
_Scheherazade_.
Away over the quiet sea the little yacht steamed, the red-gold evening
sunlight bathing her decks and cresting with jewels each tiny wave in
her track. Under the silken canopy of the little pavilion George was
still sitting, with Nouna curled up asleep by his side; while the
freshening breeze, which rustled in the heavily fringed curtains, blew
straight in his face, bringing health and hope with its eager kiss,
and sweeping away like noxious vapours the dark memories of the bygone
winter. Ambition was stirring again within him, and a craving for hard
work, that his faults and follies in the past might be atoned for by
worthy achievement in the future. Lost in thought, he had for a moment
forgotten the present, when a slight movement of her right arm, which
lay across his own, brought his sleeping wife again to his
recollection. Bending down with a softened expression in his eyes, he
looked long at the tiny face, the sweeping black eye-lashes, and the
full red lips, the mutinous curves of which gave him a warning he
scarcely needed that, when once the depression of weak health was
past, it might still need all his love for her and all her love for
him to keep the little wilful creature within the due bounds of
dignified matronhood. The “semblance of a soul,” as Rahas called it,
had indeed peeped forth in her, and George Lauriston’s belief that
“the influence of an honest man’s love was stronger than that of any
mesmerist who ever hid pins,” had been amply justified; but Nouna was
not, and never would be, the harmless domestic creature, absorbed in
household duties, whom a husband can neglect or ignore with impunity.
Such as she was, however, George was more than content that she should
be, and the wavering young heart which had turned to him in the dark
days he was determined by every loving and wise means to keep true to
him in the brighter time.
And so, with good promise of a fair future, the sun went down in a
golden haze on the calm sea, as the yacht still sped on for the warm
lands of orange and palm.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Florence Warden was the pseudonym of Florence Alice (Price) James.
The Ward & Downey edition (3 vol., London, 1887) was referenced for
most of the changes listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ armchair/arm-chair,
lattice-work/lattice work, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Punctuation: missing periods, quotation mark pairings/nestings, etc.
Italicize two incidents of “fiacre” to maintain consistency.
[Chapter VI]
Change “At last a board _creeked_ in the hall outside” to _creaked_.
[Chapter VII]
“of which her _vegetabe_ nature… began to _describle_ to her visitor”
to _vegetable_ and _describe_, respectively.
[Chapter X]
“Miss Nouna Weston to our office _a_ quickly as possible on receipt” to
_as_.
[Chapter XI]
“and was _familar_ with every phase of fast life” to _familiar_.
[Chapter XII]
“pang of yearning towards the sincere and _oteadfast_ old friend” to
_steadfast_.
[Chapter XIV]
“at last she scarcely gave more, …, _then_ an occasional nod” to
_than_.
(“You came here this _morniug_ to see your husband drill?”) to
_morning_.
[Chapter XV]
“little tyrant that ever _capitivated_ a man’s senses and wormed”
_captivated_.
[Chapter XVI]
“and certainly done his utmost to persuade him to _aecept_ it” to
_accept_.
[Chapter XVII]
“and the swarthy _white robed_ Sundran, walking with noiseless” to
_white-robed_.
[Chapter XXI]
“first direction and then set about _carrving_ out the second” to
_carrying_.
[Chapter XXII]
“rattled on Dicky, _encourged_ by George’s lenity” to _encouraged_.
[Chapter XXIII]
“Even the _highflown_ speech was like Nouna in her serious” to
_high-flown_.
“keep her from having her life ruined by any man’s _pig headedness_”
to _pig-headedness_.
[Chapter XXVI]
(“That if I would call in--some _dy--bay_ myself--he would show) to
_day--by_.
“one of the _widows_ was burst open with a crash” to _windows_.
[Chapter XXVII]
“quick turn of every head to the left, and and hoarse cry” delete
one _and_.
“by the time he got inside the _gate way_ of the house” to _gate-way_.
[Chapter XXVIII]
“Chloris shrugged _his_ shoulders, but she was impressed” to _her_.
[Chapter XXX]
“To his surprise, the Oriental _seem_ quite relieved to find that” to
_seemed_.
[End of text]