The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice

ttle drawing-room of her London lodgings, burning the letters

thirty years of age. She lived alone with an old nurse devoted to her, on a modest little income which was just enough to support the two. There were none of the ordinary signs of grief in her face, as she slowly tore the letters of her false lover in two, and threw the pieces into the small fire which had been lit to consume them. Unhappily for herself, she was one of those women who feel too deeply to find relief in tears. Pale and quie

aint tinge of colour

e associated the idea of him with embarrassing recollections. But now, on the very day when his brother's marriage to another woman had consummated his brother's treason towards her, there was something vaguely repellent in the prospect of seeing him. The old nurse (who remembered them both

in the act of throwing the fragments of Montbarry's

ery suddenly, Henry. Is i

ng letter, and to some black ashes of burnt paper

burning

es

let

es

ding on you, at a time when you must wish to be alo

with a faint smil

me some time ago. I have been advised to do more, to keep nothing that can remind me of him-in short, to burn his letters. I have taken the advice; but I own I shrank a little from destroying the last of the

into the fire. He took the chair to which she had pointed, with a strange contradiction of expression in his face: th

at him again when she spoke. 'Well

rits, Agnes, and

er when he made that reply. She was grateful to him, but her mind was not with him: he

er a long silence, 'that the

ously in the one ne

go to the

d as soon go to-' He checked himself there. 'How can you ask?' he added in lower tones. 'I have never spoke

d her pardon. But he was still angry. 'The reckoning comes to some men,' he sai

s side, and looked at hi

ngry with her, because your brothe

Do you defend the Countess, of

d, nervous person, looking dreadfully ill; and being indeed so ill that she fainted under the heat of my room. Why should we n

ing!' he interposed. 'I can't bear to hear you talk in that patient way, after the scandalously cruel manne

rely filled my heart, and so absorbed all that is best and truest in me, as my feeling for your brother, can really pass away as if it had never existed. I have destroyed the last visible things that remind me of him. In this world I

t he has deserved,' Henry Westwick answered st

e old nurse appeared again at the

here is little Mrs. Ferrari wanting to k

t the village school, and afterwards my maid? She left me, to marry an Italian courier, named Ferrari-

n do for you?' he asked very earnestly. She thanked him, and tried to release her hand. He held it with a tremulous lingering grasp. 'God bless you, Agnes!' he said in faltering tones, with his eyes on the ground. Her face flushed again, and the next instant turned paler than ever; she knew his heart as well as he knew it himself-she was too distressed to speak. He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it fer

e a little water-colour drawing on the wall, which had belonged to her mother: it was her own portrait w

es, and watery eyes, who curtseyed deferentially and was troubled with a small chr

ther a strange answer: 'I'

t me hear how you are going on. Perhaps the petition will slip

he doesn't care about me; and he seems to take no interest in his home-I may almost say he's tired of his home. It might be better for both of us, Miss, if he went tr

thought your husband had an engagement to

ouldn't go without her. They paid him a month's salary as compensation. B

mily. Let us hope he will

rs' office. You see, there are so many of them out of employment just now. If he could be

want my recommendation,' she rejoine

er man's turn to be chosen-and the secretary will recommend him. If my husband could only send his testimonials by the same post-with just a word in your name, Miss-it might turn the scale, as they say

ry in which her visitor spoke. 'If you want my interest with a

gan to cry. 'I'm asha

onsense, Emily! Tell me the name directly-o

kerchief hard in her lap, and let off the name as if s

e and loo

r face before. 'Knowing what you know, you ought to be aware that it is impossible for me to communicate with Lo

d in her meek noiseless way to the door. 'I beg your pardon, Miss. I am

hat appealed irresistibly to her just and generous nature. 'Come,' she said; 'we must no

Scotland. I only wanted you to let him say in his letter that his wife has been known to you since she was a child, and that you

of their own to persons unaccustomed to the use of their pens. 'Suppose you try, Miss, how it looks in writing?' Childish as the idea was, Agnes tried the experiment. 'If I let you mention me,' she said, 'we must at least decide what you are to say.' She wrote the words in the briefest and plainest form:-'I venture to state that my wife has been known from her childhood to Miss Agnes Lockwood, who feels some little interest in my welfare on that account.' Reduced to this one sentence, there wa

s looked at the clock on the mantel-piece. Not ten minutes since, those serious questions had been on her lips. It almost shocked her to think of the common-place

om Emily. Her husband had got the place. Ferrari was eng

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