| CHAPTER I | |
| PAGE | |
| The Beginning | [1] |
| CHAPTER II | |
| The Manor House | [13] |
| CHAPTER III | |
| The Wonderful Garden | [34] |
| CHAPTER IV | |
| In Thessalonians | [50] |
| CHAPTER V | |
| The Midnight Adventure | [67] |
| CHAPTER VI | |
| Hunted | [83] |
| CHAPTER VII | |
| Being Detectives | [98] |
| CHAPTER VIII | |
| The Heroine | [119] |
| CHAPTER IX | |
| The Morning After | [132] |
| CHAPTER X | |
| Brewing the Spell | [152] |
| CHAPTER XI | |
| The Rosicurians | [175] |
| CHAPTER XII | |
| The Other Book | [191] |
| CHAPTER XIII | |
| The Rosy Cure | [209] |
| CHAPTER XIV | |
| The Mineral Woman | [222] |
| CHAPTER XV | |
| Justice | [244] |
| CHAPTER XVI | |
| The Appeal to Cæsar | [259] |
| CHAPTER XVII | |
| The Le-o-pard | [282] |
| CHAPTER XVIII | |
| The Leopard’s-Bane | [298] |
| CHAPTER XIX | |
| F. of H.D. | [319] |
| CHAPTER XX | |
| The Waxen Man | [340] |
| CHAPTER XXI | |
| The Atonement of Rupert | [355] |
| CHAPTER XXII | |
| The Portrait | [370] |
| CHAPTER XXIII | |
| The End | [386] |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| PAGE | |
| And through it, in trailing velvet, came a lady | [Frontispiece] |
| There was a good deal of whispered talk and mystery | [15] |
| ‘You sit next him, Charles’ | [19] |
| ‘They burned her for a witch’ | [31] |
| ‘How beautifully everything grows here’ | [43] |
| Of course they all liked to try | [55] |
| A hand was raised | [65] |
| ‘Just remember we’re yours to the death’ | [81] |
| ‘I believed you—without that,’ said Charlotte | [93] |
| They were the footprints, beyond any doubt, of a boy | [111] |
| ‘Fetches him a bite of something’ | [127] |
| ‘If I whistle, you lay low’ | [141] |
| Showed her a green parrot sitting on a nest | [155] |
| He screwed up his nose | [165] |
| ‘It’s a Nihilist bomb, come away!’ | [187] |
| Rupert rolled into bed | [205] |
| He looked over his head as though Rupert had not been there | [229] |
| ‘I can’t attend to you. Go away!’ | [237] |
| Found the broken paling and slipped through | [261] |
| Rupert was bundled into the body of the car | [277] |
| Something four-footed, spotted, furry, creeping along the passage | [299] |
| ‘It’s me; it’s Rupert,’ he shouted | [313] |
| Charles had his first swimming lesson | [321] |
| Nothing much happened except smoke | [349] |
| Charlotte found a thin black-coated shoulder a very good place to cry on | [365] |
| ‘Take your last look,’ he said | [379] |
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING
It was Caroline’s birthday, and she had had some very pleasant presents. There was a blotting-book of blue leather (at least, it looked like leather), with pink and purple roses painted on it, from her younger sister Charlotte; and a paint-box—from her brother Charles—as good as new.
‘I’ve hardly used it at all,’ he said, ‘and it’s much nicer than anything I could have bought you with my own money, and I’ve wiped all the paints clean.’