This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. DEPOSED. The little sound that is as common as silence--a familiar step, a murmured word, an opening door--one hears it a thousand times with contented indifference, as one hears the singing of the tea-kettle. But one day it falls on the heart as well as on the ear, like the stroke of a swift sword. It seems exactly the same, but one knows at once that it is not the same. In the twentieth part of a second one recognises the voice of a dire calamity--especially if one is a mother, and has heard it before. Tom came into the house by way of the kitchen, and I heard him say to Jane, in quite a quiet tone, "Where's Mrs. Braye?" That was all. I sprang from my chair, wild with terror, dropping my needlework to the floor. For I knew--I knew--I didn't want to be told--that something had happened to Harry. My boy! my boy! I had been scolding him, only an hour ago, for making love to Lily's governess--a minx, whom I had just requested to find another situation--and he had slammed the door almost in my face on leaving me. I had been longing for Tom to come in, that I might tell him all about it, and have a little cry on his shoulder, and my dignity and authority in the house supported; but now that he was here my tongue was paralysed. And I had no grievance, but an immeasurable remorse. "Don't be frightened," said my husband, trembling, in a would-be off-hand voice, "it's nothing very serious--just a bad shaking--I told him that new mare of his wasn't to be trusted, and there was a nasty stone just where she threw him. He's stunned a bit, that's all --no bones broken. I have sent for the doctor. Now look here, Polly" He opened his arms across the doorway, but I broke through them furiously. Did he remember the night when little Bobby...