H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ This, then, was Sir Gerald Wilder. This form, more beautiful than a picture, was the sorrow of James Wilder, the thing that had driven him to opium, the thing that had broken his heart and crowned him with premature old age. How? Why? ”

“ Stretched upon the snow-white coverlet lay the body of a cavalier, full-dressed in amber satin doublet and long buff-coloured riding-boots, his hair long, curling, and black as night, surrounded a face pale as marble and beautiful as a woman's. ”

“ Listen, at Ashworth, near my place, there lives a man who works in granite, you will get him to cut a memorial tablet. These words are to be upon it, they are written on this piece of paper, take it; the body is to be buried in the vault of the little church in the park ”