THE WEIRD SISTERS. A Romance. BY RICHARD DOWLING, AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERY OF KILLARD." In Three Volumes. VOL. I. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1880. [_All rights reserved._] CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, GREAT NEW STREET, LONDON. TO EDMOND POWER, ESQ., OF SPRINGFIELD, Whose kindness to Mine and to Me I SHALL NEVER FORGET WHILE I AM. CONTENTS. Part I.--A Plain Gold Guard. I.--A CONSCIENTIOUS BURGLAR 1 II.--A GENEROUS BANKER 24 III.--THE MANOR HOUSE 47 IV.--AN UNSELFISH MOTHER 69 V.--AN UNSELFISH FATHER 99 VI.--"TO THE ISLAND OR TO ----" 123 VII.--TRUSTEE TO CANCELLED PAGES 148 VIII.--WAT GREY'S ROMANCE DIES OUT 174 IX.--A FLASK OF COGNAC 194 X.--ON THE THRESHOLD OF DEATH 216 XI.--BY THE STATE BED 235 THE WEIRD SISTERS. PART I. A PLAIN GOLD GUARD. CHAPTER I. A CONSCIENTIOUS BURGLAR. Mr. Henry Walter Grey sat in his dining-room sipping claret on the evening of Monday, the 27th August, 1866. His house was in the suburbs of the city of Daneford. Mr. Grey was a man of about forty-five years of age, looking no more than thirty-eight. He was tall, broad, without the least tendency to corpulency, and yet pleasantly rounded and full. There was no angularity or harshness in his face or figure. The figure was active looking and powerful, the face open, joyous, and benignant. The hair had begun to thin at his forehead; this gave his face a soothing expression of contented calm. His forehead was broad and white; his eyes were constant, candid, and kindly; his nose was large, with quickly-mobile sensitive nostrils; and his mouth well formed and full, having a sly uptwist at one corner, indicating strong sympathy with humour. He wore neither beard nor moustache. His complexion was bright without being florid, fair without being white. His skin was smooth as a young girl's cheek. He stood six feet without his boots. He was this evening in the deepest mourning for his wife, whom he had lost on Friday, the 17th of that month, August. Although he occupied one of the most important positions in Daneford, no person who knew him, or had heard of him from a Danefordian, ever called him either Henry or Walter. He was universally known as Wat Grey. Daneford believed him to be enormously rich. He was the owner of the Daneford Bank, an institution which did a large business and held its head high.