The Zeppelin's Passenger

“Never heard a sound,” the younger of the afternoon callers admitted, getting rid of his empty cup and leaning forward in his low chair. “No more tea, thank you, Miss Fairclough. D...

The woman who paused for a moment upon the threshold of the library, looking in upon the little company, was undeniably beautiful. She had masses of red-gold hair, a little disorde...

It seemed to the two women, brief though the period of actual silence was, that in those few seconds they jointly conceived definite and lasting impressions of the man who was to b...

A new tenseness seemed to have crept into the situation. The conversation, never without its emotional tendencies, at once changed its character. Philippa, cold and reserved, with ...

Philippa's breakdown was only momentary. With a few brusque words she brought the other two down to the level of her newly recovered equanimity. “To be practical,” she began, “we ...

Jimmy Dumble possessed a very red face and an extraordinary capacity for silence. He stood a yard or two inside the room, twirling his hat in his hand. Sir Henry, after the closing...

Sir Henry was in a pleasant and expansive humour that evening. The new cook was an unqualified success, and he was conscious of having dined exceedingly well. He sat in a comfortab...

“Tell me, Mr. Lessingham,” Philippa insisted, “exactly what are you thinking of? You looked so dark and mysterious from the ridge below that I've climbed up on purpose to ask you.”...

“Captain Griffiths to see your ladyship.” Philippa's fingers rested for a moment upon the keyboard of the piano before which she was seated, awaiting Lessingham's arrival. Then sh...

Philippa and Helen started, a few mornings later, for one of their customary walks. The crystalline October sunshine, in which every distant tree and, seaward, each slowly travelli...

Sir Henry stepped back from the scales and eyed the fish which they had been weighing, admiringly. “You see that, Mills? You see that, Jimmy?” he pointed out. “Six and three-quart...

The three dinner guests entered together, Lessingham in the middle. Sir Henry's presence was obviously a surprise to all of them. “No idea that you were back, sir,” Harrison obser...

Philippa leaned back in her place. “Exactly what do you mean by that, Mr. Lessingham?” she demanded. He shook himself free from a curious sense of unreality, and turned towards h...

Sir Henry was obviously not in the best of tempers. For a mild-mannered and easy-going man, his expression was scarcely normal. “That fellow was making love to you,” he said blunt...

“Of course, we're behaving shockingly, all three of us!” Philippa declared, as she sipped her champagne and leaned back in her seat. “You mean by coming to a place like this?” Les...

Mr. William Hayter, in the solitude of his chambers at the Milan Court, was a very altered personage. He extended no welcoming salutation to his midnight visitor but simply motione...

Punctually at 12 o'clock the next morning, Lessingham presented himself at the hotel in Dover Street and was invited by the hall porter to take a seat in the lounge. Philippa enter...

Sir Henry was standing with his hands in his pockets and a very blank expression upon his face, looking out upon the Admiralty Square. He was alone in a large, barely furnished apa...

Lessingham sat upon a fallen tree on Dutchman's Common near the scene of his romantic descent, and looked rather ruefully over the moorland, seawards. Above him, the sky was covere...

“My dear man, whatever shall I do with you!” Philippa exclaimed pathetically, as the door closed upon the last of her callers. “The Guards, indeed!” Lessingham smiled as he resume...

Towards three o'clock on the following afternoon, the boisterous wind of an uncertain morning settled down to worse things. It tore the spray from the crest of the gathering waves,...

The confinement of the house, after the departure of her unwelcome visitor, stifled Philippa. Attired in a mackintosh, with a scarf around her head, she made her way on to the quay...

Philippa and Helen met in the drawing-room, a few minutes before eight that evening. Philippa was wearing a new black dress, a model of simplicity to the untutored eye, but full of...

Philippa, even for some moments after the departure of Captain Griffiths and his myrmidons, remained in a sort of nerveless trance. The crisis, with its bewildering denouement, had...

Philippa, unusually early on the following morning, glanced at the empty breakfast table with a little air of disappointment, and rang the bell. “Mills,” she enquired, “is no one ...

Philippa, late that afternoon, found what she sought--solitude. She had walked along the sands until Dreymarsh lay out of sight on the other side of a spur of the cliffs. Before he...

Philippa and Helen looked at one another a little dolefully across the luncheon table. “I suppose one misses the child,” Helen said. “I feel too depressed for words,” Philippa ad...

To Major Richard Felstead, Mills' announcement was without significance. For the first time he became conscious, however, of something which seemed almost like a secret understandi...

For a few brief seconds no one seemed inclined to take upon themselves the onus of speech. Richard's amazement seemed to increase upon reflection. “Maderstrom!” he exclaimed. “Ber...

It was a happy, if a trifle hysterical little dinner party that evening at Mainsail Haul. Philippa was at times unusually silent, but Helen had expanded in the joy of her great hap...

Lessingham stood for a moment by the side of the car from which he had just descended, glanced at the huge tyres and the tins of petrol lashed on behind. “Nothing more you want, c...

For a moment Philippa was unsteady upon her feet. Lessingham led her to a chair. From outside came the low, cautious hooting of the motor horn, calling to its dilatory passenger. ...

Mills' words were plainly audible throughout the room. Philippa made eager signs to Lessingham, pointing to the French windows. Lessingham, however, shook his head. “I prefer,” he...