John Williamson

“ Her face was familiar. I remembered that tremulous, wistful smile of eyes and lips, which (the thought flashed through my head) would be fine stock-in-trade for an actress. Still, for the life of me, I couldn't recall the girl's name or whether we had ever really met, until her chance came to dash into the breach made by disappearing plumes and feathers. She seized the opportunity with a promptness that argued well for her bump of decision: but she was helped to success by the tallest, thinnest, brightest-eyed young man I had ever seen. ”

“ She spoke to Roger, but for an instant her eyes turned to me.
"Oh, darling," cried Grace, springing up as Maida rose, "it's not fair—such short notice! Send word that you can't."
"The only thing I can't do, dear, is to break my promise," the girl cut in. "I must go, and she asks me to travel alone to Salthaven. That's the nearest station for the Sisterhood House. She gives me the time of the train I'm to take—seven o'clock. After all, why isn't one day the same as another? Only, it's hard to say good-bye." ”

“ That nature may be read in a face which retains in a surpassing degree its original sweetness and purity of expression. The marks with which the battle of business life scars most faces, can be traced in his only in the 'busy wrinkles,' not 'round' but at the corners of 'the eyes.' Intelligence of a high order, with blended firmness and gentleness, are to be read in Mr. Williamson's features, and in his expression the simplicity and modesty which have ever made distasteful to him all display, whether of the wealth he has amassed or the millions he has already bestowed in charity. ”

“ And I don't hear those Taubes now. The chances are we shall get back safe and sound, at the château to-night—in time for dinner. I wish I could decide before I meet those Americans! The sight of boys from home might make me weaken."
"Why not toss a coin?" I suggested. "But no, I forgot. You have three to decide between. Heads and tails aren't enough."
"I—almost—think Lord John is off," said she. "People might say I married him for his title."
I WORE a spade guinea in my waistcoat pocket, despite Mother's protests against hoarding gold. This I displayed under Nancy's eyes. ”

“ Almost without telling I knew that the secret must concern Irene's jewels, which were worth at least twenty thousand pounds; a haul not to be despised. Bending over Don, I lifted my head and looked around. I was sure that a knothole in the wooden wall had come into being within the last five minutes. If there'd been an aperture there, it had been stuffed with rags, now noiselessly withdrawn. It was distant not a yard from Donald's face as he lay on the mattress, and a person crouching on the floor outside could catch every word, unless we whispered. ”

“ The Sister wears it to spare others pain. As for the dream—I have it everywhere, and often. Don't be anxious. I'll write, and—you can write if you will. Dear Roger, is the car ready?"
"No," said Roger bluntly. "I hoped John would make you see reason."
"I do see it," the girl answered. "I didn't last night."
"How I wish you weren't over twenty-one!" her adopted brother growled.
Maida laughed, almost gaily. "As it is, I'm an old maid, and must be allowed to go my own way."
"May I motor you and Roger to Pine Cliff, if you must go?" I begged. ”

“ The three had motored from London to Hasletowers; and they smiled drily when Violet asked if they "thought there was danger of an attack on the way back."
"None whatever," replied the square-faced Combes. "We've made sure of that. There's too much at stake to run risks."
"Don't you remember I told you, Violet, what Mr. Combes said before?" Haslemere reminded his wife: "that the road between here and Christie's would swarm with plain clothes men in motors and on bicycles. If every gang of jewel-thieves in England or Europe were on this job, they'd have their trouble for their pains." ”

“ My own car was under repair, and I had been spinning round New York in a taxi. Now, I returned for a moment to my hotel, in the desperate hope of a message from Maida. There was nothing: but as I was hurrying out, I met Teano.
"Hurrah, my lord!" he exclaimed. "What luck to catch you like this! I thought perhaps you'd have got back from Mr. Odell's house by this time, but if you hadn't I was going round to find you. Is the young lady all right?"
"Why do you ask?" I caught him up.
"Because Nance is at our flat. ”

“ She sprang up and on a furious impulse flung open the door which she had so long watched in vain. To her astonishment the room was empty.
This seemed a miracle; for she knew that John Hasle had gone in and hadn't come out. As she stood staring at the empty room which seemed to have no second exit, the Chinese proprietor came to her with a threatening air. "You do what we no 'low this place," he said bullyingly. "That plivate loom. You no pay plivate loom. You no light look in. You give me five dolahs you' dinnah, and you go 'way. We no like spies. ”

“ We might as well batter at the gates of Paradise as those of the Grey Sisterhood. We would be turned away, as with a flaming sword. Trust the Head Sister for that! But we were not at the end of our resources.
That evening towards dusk, two ruddy-faced coastguards left a somewhat dilapidated car in charge of a local youth. They walked for a short distance, where a group of pines on a promontory had suggested the name "Pine Cliff." They rang a gate bell, although aware that tradesmen were the only males of the human species allowed to cross the threshold. ”

“ The man who broke me is dead, but his children live—twins, a son and a daughter. They have come home from some country far away, to their father's house. I saw them come—I, the lame beggar lying in the street, a Thing that does not count! Two women were with Essain, his sister and another who was ill—perhaps unconscious—lying upon a litter on camel back. The embroidery you saw, with the English words which I, too, could read—came from his house. It was brought by a negro, to-day, to the shop of Said ben Hassan, and put in his window an hour before you rode into Hathor Set. ”

“ That's why, if your play is produced in New York, I shall see it gets what it deserves—or, anyway, what your family deserves."
"How do you know Haslemere wrote that letter?" I asked.
"My sister got it from a woman who was to present her—a friend of Lord Haslemere's wife. She'd seen the letter."
"Then she must have seen some reason alleged."
"She did. That to his certain knowledge Miss Madeleine Odell wasn't a proper person to be introduced to their Majesties. Maida not a proper person! She's a saint." ”

“ My companion opened it, indicating, with a smile, that it possessed no lock, only an old-fashioned latch. "You need not fear to go in and talk with your friend alone," he said, in his low, monotonous voice. "You see, he is not a prisoner! And we cannot make you one."
I shrugged my shoulders, and passed him without a word, shutting the door behind me as I entered the wretched den on the other side. It was lit by one paraffin lamp, supported by a bracket attached to the wall, and such light as existed brought out from the shadows the vague lumpish shape of a mattress on the floor. ”

“ The omen of luck was good, for we found our man at the police head-quarters, and, true to his promise, Carr Price sat as still and expressionless as an owl while I did the talking. I had been introduced to the great Sam Yelverton by my own request as the author of The Key, and it really was a stroke of luck that he had read and liked it. He looked interested when I said that I'd got an idea for my book from a cause célèbre in New York—"The Callender-Graham affair," I explained.
"Ah, the latchkeys in the dead men's pockets!" ”

“ Pitt’s lap, calling out, “Cowslips, lady; thank ye!” When a sixpence was thrown down to her, she smiled, courtesied primly, and then disappeared into the nearest cottage,—one of plaster and thatch, overgrown with roses.
However, the crowning joy of the day, even [Pg 240] in the opinion of John, who was difficult to please, was the first glimpse of quaint little Clovelly itself. The coach set them down in the middle of a field; a few seafaring men stood about, there was a booth or two where old women sold fruit, a steep path was before them, but no town was anywhere in sight. ”

“ The Little Man of Large Soul On the 7th of March, 1889, Isaiah V. Williamson journeyed on, and after many days, the city in which he lived woke to some realization of its loss. For eighty-six years he had lived most of his days in Philadelphia, and yet few knew or cared to know him until the last five years of his life. Big men were too busy with their own affairs and little men too narrow to do more than point to him as a shabby, stingy, old man, as if the bent figure and clothes were all of the man or as though the quoting of some one word or act of his indicated the whole of the man. ”

“ Very sorry; more lifting of the hat; a sheepish look of feigned regret; and then West, thoroughly ashamed of me, started the car. The next moment we had shot away, but not without a startling impression.
"The worst turn you can possibly do Miss Odell will be to prevent her coming into the Sisterhood House. It is the one place where she can be safe." Those were the words I heard over the noise of the starting motor; and as we left the tall statue of a woman, the high wind blew her thick veil partly aside. ”

“ I couldn't say to her, "I am Mr. John Winston, a perfectly respectable person. I have been seized with a strong and sudden admiration for your beauty. Will you let me go with you on your trip through France?" Even an American girl would have been staggered at that. The situation called for an immediate decision—either I was to lose the girl, or resort to a trick. You quite see how it was, don't you?
In the first instant there came a complication. I had stopped my car a minute in the Bois to scribble a character for my new self—James Brown, from my old self—John Winston ”

“ Rameses I believed to be far away, out of reach: but the assistant he had left behind was worthy of him. She had reason to know the New York hotel I frequented: the note-paper was easy to get: only the forgery business needed an expert. And what a clever idea that the summons should come from me! The Head Sister had known how hard, perhaps impossible, it would have been to make the girl break her promise. Now I saw why consent had been given to my calling on Maida at her brother's house. ”

“ Isaiah Williamson never for a day of all his long life lost the sweetness, gentleness, and dignity of his little country Quaker mother, nor did he forget the stalwart, rugged manliness, strict honesty, and fairness of his father. ”

“ Nothing on this earth can induce me to change my mind. You only make us both miserable by keeping on. Oh, Rod, here comes Aunt Marian! This is her chair."
Roger Odell glanced in the direction the girl's eyes gave him. I did likewise. A woman was coming, a tall woman in brown. A generation ago she would have been middle-aged; in our generation such women are young. She looked about thirty-eight, and so I put her down as ten years older. She was dusky olive, with a narrow face, banded black hair, and a swaying throat: rather a beautiful Leonardo da Vinci sort of woman. ”

“ The next thing was to cable the police at Naples and Bordeaux: yet so far we had no definite proof against the Head Sister, who had the luck as well as the ingenuity of her supposed partner, Doctor Rameses. She could merely be watched on her arrival at a foreign port, not held: and I dared not even take it firmly for granted that she and Maida had left America, till Teano's frantic energies should bring further particulars of their movements. I blamed myself for the embroglio: still, I would not say, even in the privacy of my own head, "If I hadn't trusted the girl so blindly!" ”

“ When she returned to New York it was to find that Grace was being bombarded with love letters at school, and that the hotel in the village near by had for its principal clients a crowd of young men whose whole business in life was lying in wait for the heiress. In consequence, Marian brought her niece back to the house in Park Avenue; and soon after, before the girl had been allowed to come out in society, Antonio, the younger brother of Paolo Tostini, arrived in New York. ”

“ Maida asked.
"Because—a man who would steal you away from us if he could, is often at the place where we must go. He visits the young English girl I am asked to help; and I fear that his interest in her is not for her good. Now, dear child, don't be angry with me for saying this! I don't ask you to believe. I tell you only what I hear from my philanthropic friend in New York who enables us to do some of our best work. ”

“ She has enough to worry about. All day this horrid thought has been in my head. Was I chosen because if she died, I could be blamed—a prison bird, with a black heart too full of evil to be reclaimed by kindness? If my darling girl will give me the name of the man who loves her and where he is, I'll make some excuse to get a day off—perhaps to meet my brother Larry—and tell her lover what has been going on."
This was the last entry in the book, and it gave me the certainty for which I groped. The nurse must have come from the Sisterhood House and from Maida ”