Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v2"

George Barr McCutcheon - "Quill's Window"

A. A. Milne - "The Holiday Round"

Clara Reeve - "The Old English Baron"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Madame Midas

F >> Fergus Hume >> Madame Midas




He bent down, and caught her wrist fiercely.

'You ask me that?' he said, in a voice of concentrated passion, 'you
who, with your long tongue, have put the hangman's rope round my
throat; but for you, I would, by this time, have been on my way to
America, where freedom and wealth awaits me. I have worked hard, and
committed crimes for money, and now, when I should enjoy it, you,
with your feminine devilry, have dragged me back to the depths.'

'I did not make you commit the crimes,' she said, piteously.

'Bah!' with a scoffing laugh, 'who said you did? I take my own sins
on my own shoulders; but you did worse; you betrayed me. Yes; there
is a warrant out for my arrest, for the murder of that accursed
Pierre. I have eluded the clever Melbourne police so far, but I have
lived the life of a dog. I dare not even ask for food, lest I betray
myself. I am starving! I tell you, starving! you harlot! and it is
your work.'

He flung her violently to the ground, and she lay there, a huddled
heap of clothing, while, with wild gesticulations, he went on.

'But I will not hang,' he said, fiercely; 'Octave Braulard, who
escaped the guillotine, will not perish by a rope. No; I have found
a boat going to South America, and to-morrow I go on board of her,
to sail to Valparaiso; but before I go I settle with you.'

She sprang suddenly to her feet with a look of hate in her eyes.

'You villain!' she said, through her clenched teeth, 'you ruined my
life, but you shall not murder me!'

He caught her wrist again, but he was weak for want of food, and she
easily wrenched it away.

'Stand back!' she cried, retreating a little.

'You think to escape me,' he almost shrieked, all his smooth cynical
mask falling off; 'no, you will not; I will throw you into the
river. I will see you sink to your death. You will cry for help. No
one will hear you but God and myself. Both of us are merciless. You
will die like a rat in a hole, and that face you are so proud of
will be buried in the mud of the river. You devil! your time has
come to die.'

He hissed out the last word in a low, sibilant manner, then sprang
towards her to execute his purpose. They were both standing on the
verge of the steps, and instinctively Kitty put out her hands to
keep him off. She struck him on the chest, and then his foot slipped
on the green slime which covered the steps, and with a cry of
baffled rage he fell backward into the dull waters, with a heavy
splash. The swift current gripped him, and before Kitty could utter
a sound, she could see him rising out in midstream, and being
carried rapidly away. He threw up his hands with a hoarse cry for
help, but, weakened by famine, he could do nothing for himself, and
sank for the second time. Again he rose, and the current swept him
near shore, almost within reach of a fallen tree. He made a
desperate effort to grasp it, but the current, mocking his puny
efforts, bore him away once again in its giant embrace, and with a
wild shriek on God he sank to rise no more.

The woman on the bank, with white face and staring eyes, saw the
fate which he had meant for her meted out to him, and when she saw
him sink for the last time, she covered her face with her hand and
fled rapidly away into the shadowy night.

The sun is setting in a sea of blood, and all the west is lurid with
crimson and barred by long black clouds. A heavy cloud of smoke shot
with fiery red hangs over the city, and the din of many workings
sound through the air. Down on the river the ships are floating on
the blood-stained waters, and all their masts stand up like a forest
of bare trees against the clear sky. And the river sweeps on red and
angry-looking under the sunset, with the rank grass and vegetation
on its shelving banks. Rats are scampering along among the wet
stones, and then a vagrant dog poking about amid some garbage howls
dismally. What is that black speck on the crimson waters? The trunk
of a tree perhaps; no, it is a body, with white face and tangled
auburn hair; it is floating down with the current. People are
passing to and fro on the bridge, the clock strikes in the town
hall, and the dead body drifts slowly down the red stream far into
the shadows of the coming night--under the bridge, across which the
crowd is hurrying, bent on pleasure and business, past the tall
warehouses where rich merchants are counting their gains, under the
shadow of the big steamers with their tall masts and smoky funnels.
Now it is caught in the reeds at the side of the stream; no, the
current carries it out again, and so down the foul river, with the
hum of the city on each side and the red sky above, drifts the dead
body on its way to the sea. The red dies out of the sky, the veil of
night descends, and under the cold starlight--cold and cruel as his
own nature--that which was once Gaston Vandeloup floats away into
the still shadows.

FINIS