JOHNNY LUDLOW
Johnny Ludlow
BY
MRS. HENRY WOOD
AUTHOR OF “EAST LYNNE,” “THE CHANNINGS,” ETC.
FOURTH SERIES
TWENTIETH THOUSAND
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1901
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.”
Longfellow.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| A Mystery | 1 |
| Sandstone Torr | 61 |
| Chandler and Chandler | 145 |
| Verena Fontaine’s Rebellion | 190 |
| A Curious Experience | 293 |
| Roger Bevere | 313 |
| Ketira the Gipsy | 368 |
| The Curate of St. Matthew’s | 408 |
| Mrs. Cramp’s Tenant | 449 |
JOHNNY LUDLOW.
A MYSTERY.
I.
“Look here, Johnny Ludlow,” said Darbyshire to me—Darbyshirebeing, as you may chance to remember, our doctor atTimberdale—“you seem good at telling of unaccountable disappearances:why don’t you tell of that disappearance whichtook place here?”
I had chanced to look in upon him one evening when he wastaking rest in his chimney-corner, in the old red-cushioned chair,after his day’s work was over, smoking his churchwarden pipein his slippers and reading the story of “Dorothy Grape.”
“We should like to see that disappearance on paper,” wenton Darbyshire. “It is the most curious thing that has happenedin my experience.”
True enough it was. Too curious for any sort of daylight tobe seen through it; as you will acknowledge when you hear itsdetails; and far more complicated than the other story.
The lawyer at Timberdale, John Delorane, was a warm-heartedand warm-tempered man of Irish extraction. He had an extensivepractice, and lived in an old-fashioned, handsome red-brickhouse in the heart of Timberdale, with his only daughter and hissister, Hester.
You may have seen prettier girls than Ellin Delorane, butnever one that the heart so quickly went out