60 The Cattle-Baron's Daughter HAROLD BINDLOSS 61 A Breach of Promise LADY TROUBRIDGE 62 Harum Scarum ESME STUART 63 The Journal of a Jealous Woman PERCY WHITE 64 The Fowler BEATRICE HARRADEN 65 Count Bunker J. STORER CLOUSTON 66 Robert Orange JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 67 The Parish Nurse MARY E. MANN 68 Eve and the Law ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW 69 The Path of a Star MRS EVERARD COTES (Sara Jeannette Duncan) 70 The Shadow of a Crime HALL CAINE 71 George V., Our Sailor King ROBERT HUDSON 72 My French Friends CONSTANCE E. MAUD 73 Pretty Miss Neville B. M. CROKER 74 Sicilian Lovers DOUGLAS SLADEN 75 Christine of the Hills MAX PEMBERTON 76 Grand Babylon Hotel ARNOLD BENNETT 77 A Prince of Lovers SIR WM. MAGNAY, BART. 78 The Whip Hand KEBLE HOWARD 79 The Suspicions of Ermengarde MAXWELL GRAY 80 The Column CHARLES MARRIOTT 81 Cynthia LEONARD MERRICK 82 Jennifer Pontefracte ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW 83 Molly Bawn MRS HUNGERFORD 84 A Sower of Wheat HAROLD BINDLOSS 85 2835 Mayfair FRANK RICHARDSON 86 Two Little Wooden Shoes OUIDA 87 A Bride from the Bush ERNEST W. HORNUNG _Further Volumes in Preparation_ London and Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press. CHAPTER I IN PARK LANE Breakfast was laid for two in the smallest room--a jewel of a room--of perhaps the largest house in Park Lane. It was already half-past ten, but as yet there was only one occupant of the room, an elderly lady of striking appearance. Her face, a long oval face, was wrinkled and crow-footed in a thousand lines; her capacious forehead was contracted as if with thought; her white eyebrows were thick and firmly drawn; her deep-set eyes were curiously keen and bright; her features were strongly marked,--it was a handsome face which could never, even in early girlhood, have been a pretty face; her abundant hair was of a rich creamy white, the kind of white which in age compensates its owner for the years of her youth when it was inclined to redness; her mouth was full, the lower lip slightly projecting, as is often found with those who speak much and in large rooms; her fingers were restless; her figure was withered by time. When she laid aside the paper she had been reading, and walked across the room to the open window, you might have noticed how frail and thin she seemed, yet how firmly she walked and stood.