Beyond These Voices - Mary Elizabeth Braddon

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 18 edition. Excerpt: ...I must leave this hateful town. Yes, mother, I mean to go away--for a long time. I shall take your advice. If you see Father Hammond I should like you to tell him about this talk of ours." ' Why not go to him at once and make your confession? You would feel happier afterwards." " I have not come to that yet. I mean to have a talk with him later. A riverdervi, Madre mia." " Where are you going? " " I don't know. To my rooms, most likely. I have letters to write." He was gone before she could question him further. That business of letter-writing was the most arduous work he knew. Since he had " chucked " art, his days had no more strenuous employment; his life was the over-occupied existence of a man of pleasure. CHAPTER XV Lord Okehampton, discussing the financier's fate in a tSte-d-tSle dinner with his wife, was only one among a multitude who were thinking of the Provana murder. There is nothing that English men and women enjoy more than the crime which they call " a really good murder." They will import sensation cases from America or the colonies, and will try to feel as keenly interested in a murder in New York or Melbourne as in a London tragedy. But the keen relish is lacking where the crime has been done afar off. It is impossible to realise the scene in unfamiliar surroundings. The sense of nearness, of the street or the countryside we know, is a strong factor in the interest of the story. To the man who knows his Paris thoroughly a Parisian crime may appeal; but to the woman who buys frocks in the Rue de la Paix, and hats on the Boulevard des Italiens, the most diabolical murder in the Marais, or on the heights of Belleville, seems tame. Thus the murder of a millionaire in the midst of the rich man's London was a crime that set every...