The Shadow of the Rope

The Shadow of the Rope

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shadow of the Rope, by E. W. Hornung This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Shadow of the Rope
Author: E. W. Hornung
Release Date: June 12, 2004 [EBook #12590]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: She had recoiled into the narrow hall, driven by an uncontrollable revulsion.]

THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
BY E.W. HORNUNG
ILLUSTRATED BY HARVEY T. DUNN
1906

TO MY FRIEND EDWARD SHORTT

CONTENTS
Chapter
I.
The End of Their Life
II. The Case for the Crown
III. Name and Nature
IV. The Man in the Train
V. The Man in the Street
VI. A Peripatetic Providence
VII. A Morning Call
VIII. The Dove and the Serpent
IX. A Change of Scene
X. A Slight Discrepancy
XI. Another New Friend
XII. Episode of the Invisible Visitor
XIII. The Australian Room
XIV. Battle Royal
XV. A Chance Encounter
XVI. A Match for Mrs. Venables
XVII. Friends in Need
XVIII. "They Which Were Bidden"
XIX. Rachel's Champion
XX. More Haste
XXI. Worse Speed
XXII. The Darkest Hour
XXIII. Dawn
XXIV. One Who Was Not Bidden
XXV. A Point to Langholm
XXVI. A Cardinal Point
XXVII. The Whole Truth
XXVIII. In the Matter of a Motive

ILLUSTRATIONS
She had recoiled into the narrow hall, driven by an uncontrollable revulsion.
"I will!" she answered through her teeth--and she swept past him out of the room.
"I'll tell you who I thought it was at first," said he, heartily.

The Shadow of the Rope
CHAPTER I
THE END OF THEIR LIFE
"It is finished," said the woman, speaking very quietly to herself. "Not another day, nor a night, if I can be ready before morning!"
She stood alone in her own room, with none to mark the white-hot pallor of the oval face, the scornful curve of quivering nostrils, the dry lustre of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy step went blustering down two flights of stairs, and double doors slammed upon the ground floor.
It was a little London house, with five floors from basement to attic, and a couple of rooms upon each, like most little houses in London; but this one had latterly been the scene of an equally undistinguished drama of real life, upon which the curtain was even now descending. Although a third was whispered by the world, the persons of this drama were really only two.
Rachel Minchin, before the disastrous step which gave her that surname, was a young Australian lady whose apparent attractions were only equalled by her absolute poverty; that is to say, she had been born at Heidelberg, near Melbourne, of English parents more gentle than practical, who soon left her to fight the world and the devil with no other armory than a good face, a fine nature, and the pride of any heiress. It is true that Rachel also had a voice; but there was never enough of it to augur an income. At twenty, therefore, she was already a governess in the wilds, where women are as scarce as water, but where the man for Rachel did not breathe. A few years later she earned a berth to England as companion to a lady; and her fate awaited her on board.
Mr. Minchin had reached his prime in the underworld, of which he also was a native, without touching affluence, until his fortieth year. Nevertheless, he was a travelled man, and no mere nomad of the bush. As a mining expert he had seen much life in South Africa as well as in Western Australia, but at last he was to see more in Europe as a gentleman of means. A wife had no place in his European scheme; a husband was the last thing Rachel wanted; but a long sea voyage, an uncongenial employ, and the persistent chivalry of a handsome, entertaining, self-confident man of the world, formed a combination as fatal to her inexperience as that of so much poverty, pride, and beauty proved to Alexander Minchin. They were married without ceremony on the very day that they arrived in England, where they had not an actual friend between them, nor a relative to whom either was personally known. In the beginning this mattered nothing; they had to see Europe and enjoy themselves; that they could do unaided; and the bride did it only the more thoroughly, in a sort of desperation, as she realized that the benefits of her marriage were to be wholly material after all.
In the larger life of cities, Alexander Minchin was no longer the idle and good-humored cavalier to whom Rachel had learned to look for unfailing consideration at sea. The illustrative incidents may be omitted; but here he gambled, there he drank; and in