G. P. R. James - "The King's Highway"

Ella Wheeler Wilcox - "Poems of Optimism"

John Fox, Jr. - "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine"

William Butler Yeats - "The Land Of Heart's Desire"

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: The Fallen Leaves

W >> Wilkie Collins >> The Fallen Leaves




The stranger's grave face suddenly became compassionate as well as
grave. "I must speak with you before you go upstairs," he said,
lowering his voice as he looked at Sally, still seated in the cab. "You
will perhaps excuse the liberty I am taking, when I tell you that I am
a medical man. Come into the hall for a moment--and don't bring the
young lady with you."

Amelius told Sally to wait in the cab. She saw his altered looks, and
entreated him not to leave her. He promised to keep the house door open
so that she could see him while he was away from her, and hastened into
the hall.

"I am sorry to say I have bad, very bad, news for you," the doctor
began. "Time is of serious importance--I must speak plainly. You have
heard of mistakes made by taking the wrong bottle of medicine? The poor
lady upstairs is, I fear, in a dying state, from an accident of that
sort. Try to compose yourself. You may really be of use to me, if you
are firm enough to take my place while I am away."

Amelius steadied himself instantly. "What I can do, I will do," he
answered.

The doctor looked at him. "I believe you," he said. "Now listen. In
this case, a dose limited to fifteen drops has been confounded with a
dose of two table-spoonsful; and the drug taken by mistake is
strychnine. One grain of the poison has been known to prove fatal--she
has taken three. The convulsion fits have begun. Antidotes are out of
the question--the poor creature can swallow nothing. I have heard of
opium as a possible means of relief; and I am going to get the
instrument for injecting it under the skin. Not that I have much belief
in the remedy; but I must try something. Have you courage enough to
hold her, if another of the convulsions comes on in my absence?"

"Will it relieve her, if I hold her?" Amelius, asked.

"Certainly."

"Then I promise to do it."

"Mind! you must do it thoroughly. There are only two women upstairs;
both perfectly useless in this emergency. If she shrieks to you to be
held, exert your strength--take her with a firm grasp. If you only
touch her (I can't explain it, but it is so), you will make matters
worse."

The servant ran downstairs, while he was speaking. "Don't leave us,
sir--I'm afraid it's coming on again."

"This gentleman will help you, while I am away," said the doctor. "One
word more," he went on, addressing Amelius. "In the intervals between
the fits, she is perfectly conscious; able to listen, and even to
speak. If she has any last wishes to communicate, make good use of the
time. She may die of exhaustion, at any moment. I will be back
directly."

He hurried to the door.

"Take my cab," said Amelius, "and save time."

"But the young lady--"

"Leave her to me." He opened the cab door, and gave his hand to Sally.
It was done in a moment. The doctor drove off.

Amelius saw the servant waiting for them in the hall. He spoke to
Sally, telling her, considerately and gently, what he had heard, before
he took her into the house. "I had such good hopes for you," he said;
"and it has come to this dreadful end! Have you courage to go through
with it, if I take you to her bedside? You will be glad one day, my
dear, to remember that you cheered your mother's last moments on
earth."

Sally put her hand in his. "I will go anywhere," she said softly, "with
You."

Amelius led her into the house. The servant, in pity for her youth,
ventured on a word of remonstrance. "Oh, sir, you're not going to let
the poor young lady see that dreadful sight upstairs!"

"You mean well," Amelius answered; "and I thank you. If you knew what I
know, you would take her upstairs, too. Show the way."

Sally looked at him in silent awe as they followed the servant
together. He was not like the same man. His brows were knit; his lips
were fast set; he held the girl's hand in a grip that hurt her. The
latent strength of will in him--that reserved resolution, so finely and
firmly entwined in the natures of sensitively organized men--was
rousing itself to meet the coming trial. The doctor would have doubly
believed in him, if the doctor had seen him at that moment.

They reached the first-floor landing.

Before the servant could open the drawing-room door, a shriek rang
frightfully through the silence of the house. The servant drew back,
and crouched trembling on the upper stairs. At the same moment, the
door was flung open, and another woman ran out, wild with terror. "I
can't bear it!" she cried, and rushed up the stairs, blind to the
presence of strangers in the panic that possessed her. Amelius entered
the drawing-room, with his arm round Sally, holding her up. As he
placed her in a chair, the dreadful cry was renewed. He only waited to
rouse and encourage her by a word and a look--and ran into the bedroom.

For an instant, and an instant only, he stood horror-struck in the
presence of the poisoned woman.

The fell action of the strychnine wrung every muscle in her with the
torture of convulsion. Her hands were fast clenched; her head was bent
back: her body, rigid as a bar of iron, was arched upwards from the
bed, resting on the two extremities of the head and the heels: the
staring eyes, the dusky face, the twisted lips, the clenched teeth,
were frightful to see. He faced it. After the one instant of
hesitation, he faced it.

Before she could cry out again, his hands were on her. The whole
exertion of his strength was barely enough to keep the frenzied throbs
of the convulsion, as it reached its climax, from throwing her off the
bed. Through the worst of it, he was still equal to the trust that had
been placed in him, still faithful to the work of mercy. Little by
little, he felt the lessening resistance of the rigid body, as the
paroxysm began to subside. He saw the ghastly stare die out of her
eyes, and the twisted lips relax from their dreadful grin. The tortured
body sank, and rested; the perspiration broke out on her face; her
languid hands fell gently over on the bed. For a while, the heavy
eyelids closed--then opened again feebly. She looked at him. "Do you
know me?" he asked, bending over her. And she answered in a faint
whisper, "Amelius!"

He knelt down by her, and kissed her hand. "Can you listen, if I tell
you something?"

She breathed heavily; her bosom heaved under the suffocating oppression
that weighed upon it. As he took her in his arms to raise her in the
bed, Sally's voice reached him, in low imploring tones, from the next
room. "Oh, let me come to you! I'm so frightened here by myself."

He waited, before he told her to come in, looking for a moment at the
face that was resting on his breast. A gray shadow was stealing over
it; a cold and clammy moisture struck a chill through him as he put his
hand on her forehead. He turned towards the next room. The girl had
ventured as far as the door; he beckoned to her. She came in timidly,
and stood by him, and looked at her mother. Amelius signed to her to
take his place. "Put your arms round her," he whispered. "Oh, Sally,
tell her who you are in a kiss!" The girl's tears fell fast as she
pressed her lips on her mother's cheek. The dying woman looked at her,
with a glance of helpless inquiry--then looked at Amelius. The doubt in
her eyes was too dreadful to be endured. Arranging the pillows so that
she could keep her raised position in the bed, he signed to Sally to
approach him, and removed the slipper from her left foot. As he took it
off, he looked again at the bed--looked and shuddered. In a moment
more, it might be too late. With his knife he ripped up the stocking,
and, lifting her on the bed, put her bare foot on her mother's lap.
"Your child! your child!" he cried; "I've found your own darling! For
God's sake, rouse yourself! Look!"

She heard him. She lifted her feebly declining head. She looked. She
knew.

For one awful moment, the sinking vital forces rallied, and hurled back
the hold of Death. Her eyes shone radiant with the divine light of
maternal love; an exulting cry of rapture burst from her. Slowly, very
slowly, she bent forward, until her face rested on her daughter's foot.
With a faint sigh of ecstasy she kissed it. The moments passed--and the
bent head was raised no more. The last beat of the heart was a beat of
joy.



BOOK THE EIGHTH

DAME NATURE DECIDES

CHAPTER 1

The day which had united the mother and daughter, only to part them
again in this world for ever, had advanced to evening.

Amelius and Sally were together again in the cottage, sitting by the
library fire. The silence in the room was uninterrupted. On the open
desk, near Amelius, lay the letter which Mrs. Farnaby had written to
him on the morning of her death.

He had found the letter--with the envelope unfastened--on the floor of
the bedchamber, and had fortunately secured it before the landlady and
the servant had ventured back to the room. The doctor, returning a few
minutes afterwards, had warned the two women that a coroner's inquest
would be held in the house, and had vainly cautioned them to be careful
of what they said or did in the interval. Not only the subject of the
death, but a discovery which had followed, revealing the name of the
ill-fated woman marked on her linen, and showing that she had used an
assumed name in taking the lodgings as Mrs. Ronald, became the gossip
of the neighbourhood in a few hours. Under these circumstances, the
catastrophe was made the subject of a paragraph in the evening
journals; the name being added for the information of any surviving
relatives who might be ignorant of the sad event. If the landlady had
found the letter, that circumstance also would in all probability, have
formed part of the statement in the newspapers, and the secret of Mrs.
Farnaby's life and death would have been revealed to the public view.

"I can trust you, and you only," she wrote to Amelius, "to fulfil the
last wishes of a dying woman. You know me, and you know how I looked
forward to the prospect of a happy life in retirement with my child.
The one hope that I lived for has proved to be a cruel delusion. I have
only this morning discovered, beyond the possibility of doubt, that I
have been made the victim of wretches who have deliberately lied to me
from first to last. If I had been a happier woman, I might have had
other interests to sustain me under this frightful disaster. Such as I
am, Death is my one refuge left.

"My suicide will be known to no creature but yourself. Some years
since, the idea of self destruction--concealed under the disguise of a
common mistake--presented itself to my mind. I kept the means, very
simple means, by me, thinking I might end in that way after all. When
you read this I shall be at rest for ever. You will do what I have yet
to ask of you, in merciful remembrance of me--I am sure of that.

"You have a long life before you, Amelius. My foolish fancy about you
and my lost girl still lingers in my mind; I still think it may be just
possible that you may meet with her, in the course of years.

"If this does happen, I implore you, by the tenderness and pity that
you once felt for me, to tell no human creature that she is my
daughter; and, if John Farnaby is living at the time, I forbid you,
with the authority of a dying friend, to let her see him, or to let her
know even that such a person exists. Are you at a loss to account for
my motives? I may make the shameful confession which will enlighten
you, now I know that we shall never meet again. My child was born
before my marriage; and the man who afterwards became my husband--a man
of low origin, I should tell you--was the father. He had calculated on
this disgraceful circumstance to force my parents to make his fortune,
by making me his wife. I now know, what I only vaguely suspected
before, that he deliberately abandoned his child, as a likely cause of
hindrance and scandal in the way of his prosperous career in life. Do
you now think I am asking too much, when I entreat you never even to
speak to my lost darling of this unnatural wretch? As for my own fair
fame, I am not thinking of myself. With Death close at my side, I think
of my poor mother, and of all that she suffered and sacrificed to save
me from the disgrace that I had deserved. For her sake, not for mine,
keep silence to friends and enemies alike if they ask you who my girl
is--with the one exception of my lawyer. Years since, I left in his
care the means of making a small provision for my child, on the chance
that she might live to claim it. You can show him this letter as your
authority, in case of need.

"Try not to forget me, Amelius--but don't grieve about me. I go to my
death as you go to your sleep when you are tired. I leave you my
grateful love--you have always been good to me. There is no more to
write; I hear the servant returning from the chemist's, bringing with
her only release from the hard burden of life without hope. May you be
happier than I have been! Goodbye!"

So she parted from him for ever. But the fatal association of the
unhappy woman's sorrows with the life and fortune of Amelius was not at
an end yet.

He had neither hesitation nor misgiving in resolving to show a natural
respect to the wishes of the dead. Now that the miserable story of the
past had been unreservedly disclosed to him, he would have felt himself
bound in honour, even without instructions to guide him, to keep the
discovery of the daughter a secret, for the mother's sake. With that
conviction, he had read the distressing letter. With that conviction,
he now rose to provide for the safe keeping of it under lock and key.


Just as he had secured the letter in a private drawer of his desk, Toff
came in with a card, and announced that a gentleman wished to see him.
Amelius, looking at the card, was surprised to find on it the name of
"Mr. Melton." Some lines were written on it in pencil: "I have called
to speak with you on a matter of serious importance." Wondering what
his middle-aged rival could want with him, Amelius instructed Toff to
admit the visitor.

Sally started to her feet, with her customary distrust of strangers.
"May I run away before he comes in?" she asked. "If you like," Amelius
answered quietly. She ran to the door of her room, at the moment when
Toff appeared again, announcing the visitor. Mr. Melton entered just
before she disappeared: he saw the flutter of her dress as the door
closed behind her.

"I fear I am disturbing you?" he said, looking hard at the door.

He was perfectly dressed: his hat and gloves were models of what such
things ought to be; he was melancholy and courteous; blandly
distrustful of the flying skirts which he had seen at the door. When
Amelius offered him a chair, he took it with a mysterious sigh;
mournfully resigned to the sad necessity of sitting down. "I won't
prolong my intrusion on you," he resumed. "You have no doubt seen the
melancholy news in the evening papers?"

"I haven't seen the evening papers," Amelius answered; "what news do
you mean?"

Mr. Melton leaned back in his chair, and expressed emotions of sorrow
and surprise, in a perfect state of training, by gently raising his
smooth white hands.

"Oh dear, dear! this is very sad. I had hoped to find you in full
possession of the particulars--reconciled, as we must all be, to the
inscrutable ways of Providence. Permit me to break it to you as gently
as possible. I came here to inquire if you had heard yet from Miss
Regina. Understand my motive! there must be no misapprehension between
us on that subject. There is a very serious necessity--pray follow me
carefully--I say, a very serious necessity for my communicating
immediately with Miss Regina's uncle; and I know of nobody who is so
likely to hear from the travellers, so soon after their departure, as
yourself. You are, in a certain sense, a member of the family--"

"Stop a minute," said Amelius.

"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Melton politely, at a loss to understand
the interruption.

"I didn't at first know what you meant," Amelius explained. "You put
it, if you will forgive me for saying so, in rather a roundabout way.
If you are alluding, all this time, to Mrs. Farnaby's death, I must
honestly tell you that I know of it already."

The bland self-possession of Mr. Melton's face began to show signs of
being ruffled. He had been in a manner deluded into exhibiting his
conventionally fluent eloquence, in the choicest modulations of his
sonorous voice--and it wounded his self esteem to be placed in his
present position. "I understood you to say," he remarked stiffly, "that
you had not seen the evening newspapers."

"You are quite right," Amelius rejoined; "I have not seen them."

"Then may I inquire," Mr. Melton proceeded, "how you became informed of
Mrs. Farnaby's death?"

Amelius replied with his customary frankness. "I went to call on the
poor lady this morning," he said, "knowing nothing of what had
happened. I met the doctor at the door; and I was present at her
death."

Even Mr. Melton's carefully-trained composure was not proof against the
revelation that now opened before him. He burst out with an exclamation
of astonishment, like an ordinary man.

"Good heavens, what does this mean!"

Amelius took it as a question addressed to himself. "I'm sure I don't
know," he said quietly.

Mr. Melton, misunderstanding Amelius on his side, interpreted those
innocent words as an outbreak of vulgar interruption. "Pardon me," he
said coldly. "I was about to explain myself. You will presently
understand my surprise. After seeing the evening paper, I went at once
to make inquiries at the address mentioned. In Mr. Farnaby's absence, I
felt bound to do this as his old friend. I saw the landlady, and, with
her assistance, the doctor also. Both these persons spoke of a
gentleman who had called that morning, accompanied by a young lady; and
who had insisted on taking the young lady upstairs with him. Until you
mentioned just now that you were present at the death, I had no
suspicion that you were 'the gentleman'. Surprise on my part was, I
think, only natural. I could hardly be expected to know that you were
in Mrs. Farnaby's confidence about the place of her retreat. And with
regard to the young lady, I am still quite at a loss to understand--"

"If you understand that the people at the house told you the truth, so
far as I am concerned," Amelius interposed, "I hope that will be
enough. With regard to the young lady, I must beg you to excuse me for
speaking plainly. I have nothing to say about her, to you or to
anybody."

Mr. Melton rose with the utmost dignity and the fullest possession of
his vocal resources.

"Permit me to assure you," he said, with frigidly fluent politeness,
"that I have no wish to force myself into your confidence. One remark I
will venture to make. It is easy enough, no doubt, to keep your own
secrets, when you are speaking to _me._ You will find some difficulty,
I fear, in pursuing the same course, when you are called upon to give
evidence before the coroner. I presume you know that you will be
summoned as a witness at the inquest?"

"I left my name and address with the doctor for that purpose," Amelius
rejoined as composedly as ever; "and I am ready to bear witness to what
I saw at poor Mrs. Farnaby's bedside. But if all the coroners in
England questioned me about anything else, I should say to them just
what I have said to you."

Mr. Melton smiled with well bred irony. "We shall see," he said. "In
the mean time, I presume I may ask you, in the interests of the family,
to send me the address on the letter, as soon as you hear from Miss
Regina. I have no other means of communicating with Mr. Farnaby. In
respect to the melancholy event, I may add that I have undertaken to
provide for the funeral, and to pay any little outstanding debts, and
so forth. As Mr. Farnaby's old friend and representative--"

The conclusion of the sentence was interrupted by the entrance of Toff
with a note, and an apology for his intrusion. "I beg your pardon, sir;
the person is waiting. She says it's only a receipt to sign. The box is
in the hall."

Amelius examined the enclosure. It was a formal document, acknowledging
the receipt of Sally's clothes, returned to her by the authorities at
the Home. As he took a pen to sign the receipt he looked towards the
door of Sally's room. Mr. Melton, observing the look, prepared to
retire. "I am only interrupting you," he said. "You have my address on
my card. Good evening."

On his way out, he passed an elderly woman, waiting in the hall. Toff,
hastening before him to open the garden gate, was saluted by the gruff
voice of a cabman, outside. "The lady whom he had driven to the cottage
had not paid him his right fare; he meant to have the money, or the
lady's name and address, and summon her." Quietly crossing the road,
Mr. Melton heard the woman's voice next: she had got her receipt, and
had followed him out. In the dispute about fares and distances that
ensued, the contending parties more than once mentioned the name of the
Home and of the locality in which it was situated. Possessing this
information, Mr. Melton looked in at his club; consulted a directory,
under the heading of "Charitable Institutions;" and solved the mystery
of the vanishing petticoats at the door. He had discovered an inmate of
an asylum for lost women, in the house of the man to whom Regina was
engaged to be married!


The next morning's post brought to Amelius a letter from Regina. It was
dated from an hotel in Paris. Her "dear uncle" had over estimated his
strength. He had refused to stay and rest for the night at Boulogne;
and had suffered so severely from the fatigue of the long journey that
he had been confined to his bed since his arrival. The English
physician consulted had declined to say when he would be strong enough
to travel again; the constitution of the patient must have received
some serious shock; he was brought very low. Having carefully reported
the new medical opinion, Regina was at liberty to indulge herself,
next, in expressions of affection, and to assure Amelius of her anxiety
to hear from him as soon as possible. But, in this case again, the
"dear uncle's" convenience was still the first consideration. She
reverted to Mr. Farnaby, in making her excuses for a hurriedly written
letter. The poor invalid suffered from depression of spirits; his great
consolation in his illness was to hear his niece read to him: he was
calling for her, indeed, at that moment. The inevitable postscript
warmed into a mild effusion of fondness, "How I wish you could be with
us. But, alas, it cannot be!"

Amelius copied the address on the letter, and sent it to Mr. Melton
immediately.

It was then the twenty-fourth day of the month. The tidal train did not
leave London early that morning; and the inquest was deferred, to suit
other pressing engagements of the coroner, until the twenty-sixth. Mr.
Melton decided, after his interview with Amelius, that the emergency
was sufficiently serious to justify him in following his telegram to
Paris. It was clearly his duty, as an old friend, to mention to Mr.
Farnaby what he had discovered at the cottage, as well as what he had
heard from the landlady and the doctor; leaving it to the uncle's
discretion to act as he thought right in the interests of the niece.
Whether that course of action might not also serve the interests of Mr.
Melton himself, in the character of an unsuccessful suitor for Regina's
hand, he did not stop to inquire. Beyond his duty it was, for the
present at least, not his business to look.

That night, the two gentlemen held a private consultation in Paris; the
doctor having previously certified that his patient was incapable of
supporting the journey back to London, under any circumstances.

The question of the formal proceedings rendered necessary by Mrs.
Farnaby's death having been discussed and disposed of, Mr. Melton next
entered on the narrative which the obligations of friendship
imperatively demanded from him. To his astonishment and alarm, Mr.
Farnaby started up in the bed like a man panic-stricken. "Did you say,"
he stammered, as soon as he could speak, "you mean to make inquiries
about that--that girl?"

"I certainly thought it desirable, bearing in mind Mr. Goldenheart's
position in your family."

"Do nothing of the sort! Say nothing to Regina or to any living
creature. Wait till I get well again--and leave me to deal with it. I
am the proper person to take it in hand. Don't you see that for
yourself? And, look here! there may be questions asked at the inquest.
Some impudent scoundrel on the jury may want to pry into what doesn't
concern him. The moment you're back in London, get a lawyer to
represent us--the sharpest fellow that can be had for money. Tell him
to stop all prying questions. Who the girl is, and what made that
cursed young Socialist Goldenheart take her upstairs with him--all that
sort of thing has nothing to do with the manner in which my wife met
her death. You understand? I look to you, Melton, to see yourself that
this is done. The less said at the infernal inquest, the better. In my
position, it's an exposure that my enemies will make the most of, as it
is. I'm too ill to go into the thing any further. No: I don't want
Regina. Go to her in the sitting room, and tell the courier to get you
something to eat and drink. And, I say! For God's sake don't be late
for the Boulogne train tomorrow morning."