Foxglove Manor, Volume II (of III)

Оглавление

Robert W Buchanan. Foxglove Manor, Volume II (of III)

CHAPTER XIV. BAPTISTO STAYS AT HOME

CHAPTER XV. CONJURATION

CHAPTER XVI. AT THE OPERA

CHAPTER XVII. WALTER HETHERINGTON

CHAPTER XVIII. CHURCH BELLS – AND A DISCORD

CHAPTER XIX. HE IS BUT A LANDSCAPE PAINTER

CHAPTER XX. IN THE GLOAMING

CHAPTER XXI. IN THE VICARAGE PARLOUR

CHAPTER XXII. AT THE VICARAGE

CHAPTER XXIII. DR. DUPRÉ’S ELIXIR

CHAPTER XXIV. THE EXPERIMENT

CHAPTER XXV. “BEWARE, MY LORD, OF JEALOUSY!”

CHAPTER XXVI. FIRST LEAVES FROM A PHILOSOPHER NOTE-BOOK

CHAPTER XXVII. THE NOTE-BOOK CONTINUED NYMPH AND SATYR

Отрывок из книги

It was a chill day in early autumn, and as Charles Santley passed along the dark avenue of the Manor his path was strewn here and there with freshly fallen leaves. Dark shadows lay on every side, and the heaven above was full of a sullen, cheerless light. It was just the day for a modern Faust, in the course of his noonday walk, to encounter, in some fancied guise, canine or human, the evil one of old superstition.

Be that as it may, Santley knew at last that the hour of his temptation was over, and that the evil one was not far away. He knew it, by the sullen acquiescence of evil of his own soul; by the deliberate and despairing precision with which he had chosen the easy and downward path; by the sense of darkness which already obliterated the bright moral instincts in his essentially religious mind. He had spoken the truth when he said he would follow Ellen Haldane anywhere, even to the eternal pit itself. Her beauty possessed him and disturbed him with the joy of impure thoughts; and now that he perceived his own power to trouble her peace of mind, he rejoiced at the strength of his passion with a truly diabolic perversity.

.....

“No, it is very pretty; and of course the singing is beautiful. But Mr. Santley does not approve of the theatre, and I am sorry I came.”

“Nonsense, Edith,” said young Hetherington, with a laugh. “You know you wanted to see the ‘Traviata,’ The fact is,” he continued, turning to Haldane, “my mother and my cousin are both terribly old-fashioned. My mother here is Scotch, and believes in the kirk, the whole kirk, and nothing but the kirk; and as for Edith, she is entirely, as they say in Scotland, under the minister’s ‘thoomb.’ I thought they would have enjoyed themselves, but they have been doing penance all the evening.”

.....