Ann S. Stephens
The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066191207
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. LOVE-LIGHTS IN TWO HEARTS.
CHAPTER II. CLARA APPEALS TO HER STEPMOTHER.
CHAPTER IV. THE ITALIAN TEACHER.
CHAPTER V. THE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER IN OPPOSITION.
CHAPTER VI. SOME OLD ACQUAINTANCES GET INTO A CONJUGAL DIFFICULTY.
CHAPTER VII. THE OPERATIC SUPPER.
CHAPTER VIII. BEHIND THE SCENES.
CHAPTER IX. THE FIRST PERFORMANCE.
CHAPTER X. THE TWO FOSTER-CHILDREN MEET.
CHAPTER XI. LADY CLARA QUARRELS WITH HER STEPMOTHER.
CHAPTER XII. THE OLD PRISONER.
CHAPTER XIII. THE OLD COUNTESS.
CHAPTER XIV. THE OLD COUNTESS AND HER SERVANT.
CHAPTER XV. THE EARL'S RETURN.
CHAPTER XVI. THE WIFE AND THE DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER XVII. HUSBAND AND WIFE.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE STORMY NIGHT AND SUNSHINY MORNING.
CHAPTER XIX. AFTER THE FAILURE.
CHAPTER XX. LORD HILTON TAKES SUPPER WITH OLYMPIA.
CHAPTER XXI. ON THE WAY TO HOUGHTON CASTLE.
CHAPTER XXII. THE OLD COUNTESS.
CHAPTER XXIII. EXPLANATIONS AND CONCESSIONS.
CHAPTER XXIV. DOWN BY THE BROOK AMONG THE FERNS.
CHAPTER XXV. HOW LADY CLARA GOT HER OWN WAY.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE QUARREL AND THE LETTER.
CHAPTER XXVII. MAGGIE CASEY MEETS HER OLD LOVER.
CHAPTER XXVIII. JUST FIFTY POUNDS.
CHAPTER XXIX. OLYMPIA'S DEFEAT.
CHAPTER XXX. THE FAMILY MEETING AT HOUGHTON.
CHAPTER XXXI. DOWN AMONG THE FERNS AGAIN.
CHAPTER XXXII. OUT AMONG THE TREES.
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE BALL AT HOUGHTON.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE OLD WOMAN WANDERS BACK AGAIN.
CHAPTER XXXV. LADY HOPE IN THE CASTLE.
CHAPTER XXXVI. DEATH IN THE TOWER-CHAMBER.
CHAPTER I.
LOVE-LIGHTS IN TWO HEARTS.
During fourteen years Hepworth Closs had been a wanderer over the earth.
When he was carried out from the court-room after Mrs. Yates' confession of a crime which he had shrinkingly believed committed by another, he had fainted from the suddenness with which a terrible load had been lifted from his soul.
In that old woman's guilt he had no share. It swept the blackness from the marriage he had protested against as hideously wicked. The wrong he had done was divested of the awful responsibilities which had seemed more than he could bear. The revelation had made him, comparatively, an innocent and free man. But a shock had been given to his whole being which unfitted him for the common uses of society.
After all that had passed through his mind he could not bear to think of joining his sister or husband. The keen feelings of a nature, not in its full development wicked or dishonorable, had been startled into life, when he saw into what a gulf he had almost plunged. He saw the sin and the wrong he had done in its true light, and not only repented of it, but abhorred it from the very depths of his soul. He longed to make atonement, and would have given ten years from his life for a chance by which he could have sacrificed himself to any one that poor murdered lady had loved.
These feelings rose up like a barrier between him and his sister. Her influence over his youth had been so powerful that his own better nature never might have asserted itself but for the tragedy which followed his first plunge into deception and wrong-doing.