“I shall return from London on Thursday,” said uncle Dick, “and, if you’ll come to me on that day, say so, and I’ll send a telegram to Teazer to-morrow, to have a bed-room prepared for you.”
“Let me say Monday,” I answered. “That will give your daughter more time.”
“Very well. Tom will give you full directions as to the how and the where?” And this being settled, we got talking of other things.
I grew tired at last of sitting, and wanting to join Conny, hinted that my aunt might think us rather selfish, if we lingered much longer over our cigars.
“That’s true,” said uncle Tom, “so you go and join the ladies, and tell my wife, Dick and I will follow presently.”
Conny was reading a novel. My aunt knitted.
“What’s the name of your book?” I asked, going up to my cousin, and sitting down near her.
“‘Love and Sorrow,’” answered she. “They sent it this afternoon from the library. It is very interesting.”
I took up volume the second, and opening it, caught sight of a passage which I read aloud: “Their eyes met. In her’s was pride struggling with womanly desire. In his were blazing those wild passions which were the fruit of long years of agony and disappointment. ‘By heavens!’ he cried hoarsely, while the veins stood out upon his forehead, black and knotted, ‘I would rather take you by the throat and cast you dead at my feet, than see you Lord Algernon’s wife. Never,’ he hissed, ‘shall that virgin brow be defaced by a coronet; never shall that pure form be polluted by—by—,’ he paused, staggered, looked wildly round him, brushed off the salt dews that passion had distilled upon his broad and beautiful forehead with the back of his hand, and, uttering a low moan, fell prone upon the carpet. ‘I have killed him!’ poor Madeline shrieked, rushing to his side and raising his head and gazing with wild and piteous eyes upon the white lips and the convulsed cheeks. At that moment the door opened, and Lord Algernon entered.”
“What a queer story!” exclaimed my aunt, who was nevertheless growing interested.