The Project Gutenberg eBook, Victorian Short Stories of Troubled
Marriages, by Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan
Doyle, and George Gissing

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Title: Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages
The Bronckhorst Divorce-Case, by Rudyard Kipling; Irremediable, by Ella D'Arcy; "A Poor Stick," by Arthur Morrison; The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, by Arthur Conan Doyle; The Prize Lodger, by George Gissing

Author: Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
and George Gissing

Release Date: March 26, 2005 [eBook #15466]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICTORIAN SHORT STORIES OF
TROUBLED MARRIAGES***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
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VICTORIAN SHORT STORIES OF TROUBLED MARRIAGES

CONTENTS

THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE by Rudyard Kipling

IRREMEDIABLE by Ella D'Arcy

'A POOR STICK' by Arthur Morrison

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABBEY GRANGE by Arthur Conan Doyle

THE PRIZE LODGER by George Gissing

THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE

By Rudyard Kipling

(_Civil and Military Gazette_, 26 September 1884)

In the daytime, when she moved about me,
In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,--
I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence,
Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her--
Would God that she or I had died!

--CONFESSIONS

There was a man called Bronckhorst--a three-cornered, middle-aged man in
the Army--grey as a badger, and, some people said, with a touch of
country-blood in him. That, however, cannot be proved. Mrs. Bronckhorst
was not exactly young, though fifteen years younger than her husband.
She was a large, pale, quiet woman, with heavy eyelids over weak eyes,
and hair that turned red or yellow as the lights fell on it.

Bronckhorst was not nice in any way. He had no respect for the pretty
public and private lies that make life a little less nasty than it is.
His manner towards his wife was coarse. There are many things--including
actual assault with the clenched fist-