Produced by Al Haines TEN DEGREES BACKWARD BY ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER AUTHOR OF "HER LADYSHIP'S CONSCIENCE," "CONCERNING ISABEL CARNABY," ETC., ETC. NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Copyright, 1915, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY CONTENTS I. I, Reginald Kingsnorth II. Restham Manor III. Frank IV. Fay V. The First Miracle VI. St. Luke's Summer VII. The Gift VIII. Love Among the Ruins IX. Things Great and Small X. A Birthday Present XI. In June XII. Shakspere and the Musical Glasses XIII. The Garden of Dreams XIV. Annabel's Warning XV. Darkening Skies XVI. A Sorrowful Springtime XVII. Desolation XVIII. The New Dean XIX. A Surprise XX. Isabel, Née Carnaby XXI. The Great War XXII. The Last of the Wildacres XXIII. The Peace of God XXIV. Conclusion TEN DEGREES BACKWARD CHAPTER I I, REGINALD KINGSNORTH "Reggie, do you remember Wildacre?" It was with this apparently simple question that Arthur Blathwayte rang up the curtain on the drama of my life. That the performance was late in beginning I cannot but admit. I was fully forty-two; an age at which the drama of most men's lives are over--or, at any rate, well on in the third act. But in my uneventful existence there had been no drama at all; not even an ineffective love-affair that could be dignified by the name of a "curtain-raiser." Of course I had perceived that some women were better looking than others, and more attractive and easier to get on with. But I had only perceived this in a scientific, impersonal kind of way: the perception had in nowise penetrated my inner consciousness or influenced my existence. I was the type of person who is described by the populace as "not a marrying sort," and consequently I had reached the age of forty-two without either marrying or wishing to marry. I admit that I had not been thrown into circumstances conducive to the cultivation of the tender passion; my sister Annabel had seen to that; but no sister--be she even as powerful as Annabel herself--can prevent a man from falling in love if he be so minded, nor from seeking out for himself a woman to fall in love with if none are thrown in his way. But I had not been so minded; therefore Annabel's precautions had triumphed.