A Lion Among the Ladies (Paperback)

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.1888 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XL SANS ADIEU. T was with a very lowering $f brow, and a mind burdened with annoyance and care, that Sir Wilfred Gregorie awaited in his own private sanctum the advent of Guy Leycester, to whom he had a second time that day despatched a messenger requiring his attendance. The information obtained from Miss Vidal left no doubt on the Colonel's mind in regard to the identity of Major Brereton with the purloiner of the diamonds. The discovery was not, in a public point of view, without its satisfactory side, but in so far as Sir Wilfred was concerned, it contained elements not only of worry but of alarm. He had not been able, frank and outspoken as had been, to all appearance, Miss Vidal's volunteered confession, to entirely disconnect his wife from what he did not hesitate to call that "damnably shady diamond business." He, being a man of some experience in such matters, had his own ideas as regarded not only women's proclivities but their histrionic powers; and although he had hitherto, as the reader is already aware, regarded Florence as the one woman in a thousand who could be trusted, he had not, I repeat, been able to entirely divest himself, in her case, of doubt. Vol. II. 0 The police authorities were, as he well knew, actively employed in the search after a clue by means of which the guilty man might be brought to justice. Sir Wilfred, who would from the beginning have gladly allowed the affair to slide, was now more than ever desirous that public suspicion should not be directed towards Brereton. On Lady Gregorie's account, and because of his fear that her name might be ever so slightly alluded to in connection with the theft, he felt extreme reluctance to put a summary stop to the investigations which were in progress. Deductions, the result...