THE FOUR FEATHERS***
E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
THE FOUR FEATHERS
by
A. E. W. MASON
Author of "Miranda of the Balcony," "The Courtship of Morrice Buckler," Etc.
New York The MacMillan Company London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd. 1903 All rights reserved Copyright, 1901, By A. E. W. Mason. Copyright, 1902, By The MacMillan Company. Set up and electrotyped October, 1902. Reprinted November, December, 1902; January, 1903; February, March, 1903. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
To MISS ELSPETH ANGELA CAMPBELL June 19, 1902.
CONTENTS
I. A Crimean Night
II. Captain Trench and a Telegram
III. The Last Ride Together
IV. The Ball at Lennon House
V. The Pariah
VI. Harry Feversham's Plan
VII. The Last Reconnaissance
VIII. Lieutenant Sutch is tempted to lie
IX. At Glenalla
X. The Wells of Obak
XI. Durrance hears News of Feversham
XII. Durrance sharpens his Wits
XIII. Durrance begins to see
XIV. Captain Willoughby reappears
XV. The Story of the First Feather
XVI. Captain Willoughby retires
XVII. The Musoline Overture
XVIII. The Answer to the Overture
XIX. Mrs. Adair interferes
XX. West and East
XXI. Ethne makes Another Slip
XXII. Durrance lets his Cigar go out
XXIII. Mrs. Adair makes her Apology
XXIV. On the Nile
XXV. Lieutenant Sutch comes off the Half-pay List
XXVI. General Feversham's Portraits are appeased
XXVII. The House of Stone
XXVIII. Plans of Escape
XXIX. Colonel Trench assumes a Knowledge of Chemistry
XXX. The Last of the Southern Cross
XXXI. Feversham returns to Ramelton
XXXII. In the Church at Glenalla
XXXIII. Ethne again plays the Musoline Overture
XXXIV. The End
THE FOUR FEATHERS[1]
[Footnote 1: The character of Harry Feversham is developed from a short story by the author, originally printed in the _Illustrated London News_, and since republished.]
CHAPTER I
A CRIMEAN NIGHT
Lieutenant Sutch was the first of General Feversham's guests to reach Broad Place. He arrived about five o'clock on an afternoon of sunshine in mid June, and the old red-brick house, lodged on a southern slope of the Surrey hills, was glowing from a dark forest depth of pines with the warmth of a rare jewel. Lieutenant Sutch limped across the hall, where the portraits of the Fevershams rose one above the other to the ceiling, and went out on to the stone-flagged terrace at the back. There he found his host sitting erect like a boy, and gazing southward toward the Sussex Downs.
