FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157  
158   159   160   161   162   >>  
es, partly from faintness, partly to hide from the other poor fellows the joy that leaped to them. One by one the brave lads came up and shook hands with Creagh and me in congratulation. Their good-will took me by the throat, and I could only wring their hands in silence. On our way back to the prison Creagh turned to me with streaming eyes. "Do you know whom I have to thank for this, Kenneth?" "No. Whom?" "Antoinette Westerleigh, God bless her dear heart!" And that set me wondering. It might be that Charles and Aileen alone had won my reprieve for me, but I suspected Volney's fine hand in the matter. Whether he had stirred himself in my affairs or not, I knew that I too owed my life none the less to the leal heart of a girl. CHAPTER XVI VOLNEY'S GUEST Of all the London beaux not one had apartments more elegant than Sir Robert Volney.[3] It was one of the man's vanities to play the part of a fop, to disguise his restless force and eager brain beneath the vapid punctilios of a man of fashion. There were few suspected that his reckless gayety was but a mask to hide a weary, unsatisfied heart, and that this smiling debonair gentleman with the biting wit was in truth the least happy of men. Long he had played his chosen role. Often he doubted whether the game were worth the candle, but he knew that he would play it to the end, and since he had so elected would bear himself so that all men should mark him. If life were not what the boy Robert Volney had conceived it; if failure were inevitable and even the fruit of achievement bitter; if his nature and its enveloping circumstance had proven more strong than his dim, fast-fading, boyish ideals, at least he could cross the stage gracefully and bow himself off with a jest. So much he owed himself and so much he would pay. Something of all this perhaps was in Sir Robert Volney's mind as he lay on the couch with dreamy eyes cast back into the yesterdays of life, that dim past which echoed faintly back to him memories of a brave vanished youth. On his lips, no doubt, played the half ironic, half wistful smile which had become habitual to the man. And while with half-shut eyes his mind drifted lazily back to that golden age forever gone, enter from the inner room, Captain Donald Roy Macdonald, a cocked pistol in his hand, on his head Volney's hat and wig, on his back Volney's coat, on his feet Volney's boots. The baronet eyed the Highlander with mild ast
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157  
158   159   160   161   162   >>  



Top keywords:
Volney
 

Robert

 

partly

 

suspected

 

Creagh

 
played
 
proven
 

fading

 
gracefully
 

boyish


ideals

 

strong

 
achievement
 

elected

 
candle
 

doubted

 
bitter
 
nature
 

enveloping

 

inevitable


conceived

 

failure

 

circumstance

 

lazily

 

drifted

 

golden

 

wistful

 

ironic

 

habitual

 

forever


cocked

 
Macdonald
 

pistol

 

Donald

 

Captain

 
baronet
 

Something

 
Highlander
 

memories

 
faintly

vanished
 

echoed

 
dreamy
 
yesterdays
 

Kenneth

 

turned

 
streaming
 

Antoinette

 
Westerleigh
 

Charles