The Datchet Diamonds E-Book

Marsh Richard

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The Datchet Diamonds written by English author Richard Marsh. Published in 1898. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

The Datchet Diamonds

By

Richard Marsh

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I. TWO MEN AND A MAID

CHAPTER II. OVERHEARD IN THE TRAIN

CHAPTER III. THE DIAMONDS

CHAPTER IV. MISS WENTWORTH'S RUDENESS

CHAPTER V. IN THE BODEGA

CHAPTER VI. THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT

CHAPTER VII. THE DATCHET DIAMONDS ARE PLACED IN SAFE CUSTODY

CHAPTER VIII. IN THE MOMENT OF HIS SUCCESS

CHAPTER IX. A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE

CHAPTER X. CYRIL'S FRIEND

CHAPTER XI. JOHN IRELAND'S WARRANT

CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN ROUSED

CHAPTER XIII. THE DETECTIVE AND THE LADY

CHAPTER XIV. AMONG THIEVES

CHAPTER XV. PUT TO THE QUESTION

CHAPTER XVI. A MODERN INSTANCE OF AN ANCIENT PRACTICE

CHAPTER XVII. THE MOST DANGEROUS FOR OF ALL

CHAPTER XVIII. THE LAST OF THE DATCHET DIAMONDS

CHAPTER XIX. A WOMAN'S LOGIC

"Shall I shoot all three of you?"

CHAPTER I. TWO MEN AND A MAID

The band struck up a waltz. It chanced to be the one which they had last danced together at the Dome. How well he had danced, and how guilty she had felt! Conscious of what almost amounted to a sense of impropriety! Charlie had taken her; it was Charlie who had made her go—but then, in some eyes, Miss Wentworth might not have been regarded as the most unimpeachable of chaperons. That Cyril, for instance, would have had strong opinions of his own upon that point, Miss Strong was well aware.

While Miss Strong listened, thinking of the last time she had heard that waltz, the man with whom she had danced it stood, all at once, in front of her. She had half expected that it would be so—half had feared it. It was not the first time they had encountered each other on the pier; Miss Strong had already begun to more than suspect that the chance of encountering her was the magnet which drew Mr. Lawrence through the turnstiles. She did not wish to meet him; she assured herself that she did not wish to meet him. But, on the other hand, she did not wish to go out of her way so as to seem to run away from him.

The acquaintance had begun on the top of the Devil's Dyke in the middle of a shower of rain. Miss Strong, feeling in want of occupation, and, to speak the truth, a little in the blues, had gone, on an unpromising afternoon in April, on the spur of the moment, and in something like a temper, on a solitary excursion to the Devil's Dyke. On the Downs the wind blew great guns. She could hardly stand against it. Yet it did her good, for it suited her mood. She struggled on over the slopes, past Poynings, when, suddenly—she, in her abstraction, having paid no heed to the weather, and expecting nothing of the kind—it came down a perfect deluge of rain. She had a walking-stick, but neither mackintosh nor umbrella. There seemed every likelihood of her having to return like a drowned rat to Brighton, when, with the appropriateness of a fairy tale, some one came rushing to her with an umbrella in his hand. She could hardly refuse the proffered shelter, and the consequence was that the owner of the umbrella escorted her first to the hotel, then to the station, and afterwards to Brighton. Nor, after such services had been rendered, when they parted at the station did she think it necessary to inform him that, not under any circumstances, was he to notice her again; besides, from what she had seen of him, she rather liked the man. So, when, two days afterwards, he stopped her on the pier to ask if she had suffered any ill-effects from her exposure, it took her some five-and-twenty minutes to explain that she had not. There were other meetings, mostly on the pier; and then, as a climax, that Masonic Ball at the Dome. She danced with him five times! She felt all the time that she ought not; she knew that she would not have done it if Cyril had been there. Miss Wentworth, introduced by Miss Strong, danced with him twice, and when asked by Miss Strong if she thought that she—Miss Strong—ought to have three dances with him Miss Wentworth declared that she did not see why, if she liked, she should not have thirty. So Miss Strong had five—which shows that Miss Wentworth's notions of the duties of a chaperon were vague.