BY C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON AUTHORS OF "THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR" METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON First Published in 1918 BY THE SAME AUTHORS The Lightning Conductor The Princess Passes My Friend the Chauffeur Lady Betty Across the Water The Car of Destiny The Botor Chaperon Set in Silver Lord Loveland Discovers America The Golden Silence The Guests of Hercules The Demon The Wedding Day The Princess Virginia The Heather Moon The Love Pirate It Happened in Egypt A So

"More letters and flowers for you, Lord John," said my nurse. Not that I needed a nurse; and, above all things, I needed no more letters or flowers. The waste-paper basket was full. The room smelt like a perfume factory. The mantelpiece and all other receptacles having an army of occupation, vases and bowls were mobilising on the floor. This would, of course, not be tolerated in hospital; but I was off the sick list, recovering in a private convalescent home. I was fed up with being a wounded he

LORD JOHN'S FIRST ADVENTURE IN LOVE When applause forced the curtain up again and again on the last scene of our play—Carr Price's and mine—I wasn't looking at the stage, but at a girl in the opposite box. The box was Roger Odell's, and I was sure that the girl must be his adopted sister Madeleine. But because of the insult she had suffered through my brother, I might not visit the box uninvited. If Grace had been with her husband and sister-in-law there might have been hope. But the wedding had

When Teano first spoke to me of his sister, nothing was further from my thoughts than a meeting with the telephone girl at the Priscilla Alden, a hotel sacred to ladies. But unexpected things happen in the best regulated lives, especially in New York, as anyone may learn by the Sunday papers. Not many days after the gate of the Sisterhood House shut for the second time between Maida and me, I changed my residence from New York to a hotel about five miles from Pine Cliff. Roger Odell and Roger's

For me, one of the strangest things in a strange world is this: the compelling influence exerted upon our lives by people apparently irrelevant, yet without whom the pattern of our destiny would be different. Take the case of Anne Garth and her connection with Maida Odell—through Maida Odell, with me. Of my adventures in America while attempting to protect Maida, that in which Anne Garth played her part was among the most curious. It happened while Paul Teano, the private detective, and I were t

I was bringing my journal up to date one day at my Long Island hotel, when a page-boy brought me a card engraved with the very last name I should ever have guessed: "Lady Allendale." "Is the lady downstairs?" I asked, dazed. "The lady is here!" answered a once familiar voice at the half-open door of my sitting-room; and I jumped up to face a tall, slim figure in widow's weeds. "I hope you don't mind my surprising you?" went on the charming voice. "I wanted to see how you looked, when you saw my

If I had been fighting my own battle, not Maida's, against Doctor Rameses, I might have sometimes admired his cleverness. There seemed to be no way of catching him. The police theory was that some person, not Rameses, took advantage of the "philanthropist's" conspicuous appearance to commit crimes in a disguise resembling his peculiarities. This, they thought, might be done not only as a means of escaping detection, but with the object of blackmail. My theory was different. I believed that Rames

"What shall I do?" I asked myself as I read a letter from Maida. She begged a small and simple service, yet—I hesitated. Roger Odell had begged me to look after her as well as I could in the circumstances, during his long absence. Those circumstances were difficult ones: for I was not allowed to visit her at the Sisterhood House, and she never went out unchaperoned by her "friend" the directress. Her wish was that I should give her the key of her "sanctum" at Roger Odell's shut-up house in New Y

This chapter of my life, which stands last but one in my journal, is Maida Odell's chapter rather than mine: and to make my part in it clear, her part should come first. Then the two should join, like a double ring of platinum and gold bound together with a knot. One day Maida waked, after confused dreams of pain and terror. The dreams were blurred, as she began remembering. It was as if she were in a dim room trying to see reflections in a dust-covered mirror; then, as if she brushed off the du

A white yacht steamed slowly through calm water silvered by the moon. Maida and I were the only passengers. We had been married that day, and the yacht Lily Maid was ours for the honeymoon, lent by Maida's newly found cousins, Sir Robert and Lady Annesley. "Look," I said, as passing through the Downs I caught sight of two dark towers showing above a cloud of trees on the Kentish coast. "Those towers are my brother's house. To-morrow I shall be there making him eat humble pie—and my sister-in-law