The Red Rat's Daughter by Guy Boothby — Read

Six months had elapsed since the _Lotus Blossom_ had steamed out of the Gieranger Fjord and its owner had taken his last look at the little village of Merok. During that interval Browne had endeavoured to amuse himself to the best of his ability. In spite of Maas's insinuation to the contrary, he had visited Russia; had shot bears in the company and on the estates of his friend Demetrovitch; had passed south to the Crimea, and thence, by way of Constantinople, to Cairo, where, chancing upon some friends who were wintering in the land of the Pharaohs, he had been persuaded into engaging a _dahabiyeh_, and had endured the tedious river journey to Luxor and back in the company of a charming French countess, an Austrian archduke, a German diplomatist, and an individual whose accomplishments were as notorious as his tastes were varied.

A fortnight in Monte Carlo and a week in Paris had succeeded the Nile trip; and now the first week in March found him, free of engagements, ensconced in the luxurious smoking-room of the Monolith Club in Pall Mall, an enormous cigar between his teeth, and a feeling of regret in his heart that he had been persuaded to leave the warmth and sunshine of the favoured South for what he was now enduring. The morning had been fairly bright, but the afternoon was cold, foggy, and dreary in the extreme. Even the most weather-wise among the men standing at the windows, looking out upon the street, had to admit that they did not know what to make of it. It might only mean rain, they said; it might also mean snow. But that it was, and was going to be still more, unpleasant, nobody seemed for an instant to doubt. Browne stretched himself in his chair beside the fire, and watched the flames go roaring up the chimney, with an expression of weariness upon his usually cheerful countenance.