Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE STORY OF CHARLES STRANGE A Novel BY MRS. HENRY WOOD AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE," ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen 1888 [_All Rights Reserved_] CONTENTS OF VOL. I CHAPTER PAGE I. EARLY DAYS 1 II. CHANGES 21 III. MR. SERJEANT STILLINGFAR 47 IV. IN ESSEX STREET 73 V. WATTS'S WIFE 95 VI. BLANCHE HERIOT 114 VII. TRIED AT THE OLD BAILEY 144 VIII. THE VINE-COVERED COTTAGE AT PISA 175 IX. COMPLICATIONS 194 X. THE HOUSE AT MARSHDALE 216 XI. THE QUARREL 244 XII. MYSTERY 274 THE STORY OF CHARLES STRANGE. CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS. I, Charles Strange, have called this my own story, and shall myself tell a portion of it to the reader; not all. * * * * * May was quickly passing. The drawing-room window of White Littleham Rectory stood open to the sunshine and the summer air: for the years of warm springs and long summers had not then left the land. The incumbent of the parish of White Littleham, in Hampshire, was the Reverend Eustace Strange. On a sofa, near the window, lay his wife, in her white dress and yellow silk shawl. A young and lovely lady, with a sweet countenance; her eyes the colour of blue-bells, her face growing more transparent day by day, her cheeks too often a fatal hectic; altogether looking so delicately fragile that the Rector must surely be blind not to suspect the truth. _She_ suspected it. Nay, she no longer suspected; she knew. Perhaps it was that he would not do so. "Charley!" I sat at the end of the room in my little state chair, reading a new book of fairy tales that papa had given me that morning. He was as orthodox a divine as ever lived, but not strait-laced, and he liked children to read fairy tales. At the moment I was deep in a tale called "Finetta," about a young princess shut up in a high tower. To me it was enchanting. "Yes, mamma." "Come to me, dear." Leaving the precious book behind me, I crossed the room to the sofa. My mother raised herself. Holding me to her with one hand, she pushed with the other the hair from my face and gazed into it. That my face was very much like hers, I knew. It had been said a hundred times in my hearing that I had her dark-blue eyes and her soft brown hair and her well-carved features.