Read "The Autobiography of a Slander" by Edna Lyall online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Yet on the dull silence breaking With a lightning flash, a word, Bearing endless desolation On its blighting wings, I heard; Earth can forge no keener weapon, Dealing surer death and pain, And the cruel echo answered Through long years again. A. A. PROCTER.
Curiously enough, I must actually have started for Russia on the same day that Sigismund Zaluski was summoned by his uncle at St. Petersburg to return on a matter of urgent business. I learnt afterwards that the telegram arrived at Muddleton on the afternoon of one of those sunny September days and found Zaluski as usual at the Morleys. He was very much annoyed at being called away just then, and before he had received any reply from Gertrude's uncle as to the engagement. However, after a little ebullition of anger, he regained his usual philosophic tone, and, reminding Gertrude that he need not be away from England for more than a fortnight, he took leave of her and set off in a prompt, manly fashion, leaving most of his belongings at Ivy Cottage, which was his for another six weeks, and to which he hoped shortly to return.