2
LD
15. ORO IN HIS HOUSE
16. VISIONS OF THE PAST
17. YVA EXPLAINS
18. THE ACCIDENT
19. THE PROPOSALS OF BASTIN AND BICKLEY
20. ORO AND ARBUTHNOT TRAVEL BY NIGHT
21. LOVE'S ETERNAL ALTAR
22. THE COMMAND
23. IN THE TEMPLE OF FATE
24. THE CHARIOT OF THE PIT
25. SACRIFICE
26. TOMMY
27. BASTIN DISCOVERS A RESEMBLANCE
28. NOTE BY J. R. BICKLEY, M.R.C.S.
Chapter I
Arbuthnot Describes Himself
I suppose that I, Humphrey Arbuthnot, should begin this history in which Destiny has caused me to play so prominent a part, with some short account of myself and of my circumstances.
I was born forty years ago in this very Devonshire village in which I write, but not in the same house. Now I live in the Priory, an ancient place and a fine one in its way, with its panelled rooms, its beautiful gardens where, in this mild climate, in addition to our own, flourish so many plants which one would only expect to find in countries that lie nearer to the sun, and its green, undulating park studded with great timber trees. The view, too, is perfect; behind and around the rich Devonshire landscape with its hills and valleys and its scarped faces of red sandstone, and at a distance in front, the sea. There are little towns quite near too, that live for the most part on visitors, but these are so hidden away by the contours of the ground that from the Priory one cannot see them. Such is Fulcombe where I live, though for obvious reasons I do not give it its real name.
Many years ago my father, the Rev. Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose only child I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the vicar of this place with which our family is said to have some rather vague hereditary connection. If so, it was severed in the Carolian times because my ancestors fought on the side of Parliament.
My father was a recluse, and a widow