Transcriber’s Note
This transcription follows the text of the first edition published by Longmans, Green, and Co. in 1906. One passage, however, has been altered, namely the passage in Chapter XVIII that reads: “which I thought was not that which Vane-Cartwright had carried”. This passage has been replaced with the corresponding passage in the 1928 reprint by the Dial Press in New York, so as to read: “which I thought was not unlike that which Vane-Cartwright had carried”.
All other seeming errors or inconsistencies in the text have been left unchanged.
The cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. (The image background is a detail taken from Throwing Snowballs, a painting created by Gerhard Munthe in 1885.)