Читать книгу Hard-Pan. A Story of Bonanza Fortunes онлайн

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“For,” thought John Gault, as he turned a corner and came within view of Colonel Reed’s abode, “I am the prince who has found the Sleeping Beauty.”

The house, like many in that quarter of the city, was detached, and had once been a dwelling with pretensions to gentility. Time and weather had worked their will of it, and even under the kindly veil of night its haggard dilapidation was visible. It sat back a few feet from the street in a square of garden, where a tall dracæna shook its rustling foliage to every breeze. There was a large flowering jasmine-tree by the gate, that spread a sweet scent through the noisome airs of that old and ill-drained quarter. The visitor softly opened the gate and entered up a pathway flagged with squares of black-and-white stone that were broken and uneven. From the front window—a wide bay shrouded in vines—the light squeezed in narrow slits. John Gault pulled the old-fashioned bell and stood listening to its jingling note.

There was a step in the passage within, and the light shone through the two narrow panes of glass that flanked the front door on either side. A key turned and the door was opened. In the aperture Viola Reed stood with a kerosene lamp flickering in her hand. She held a piece of light-colored material in the other hand. As her glance fell on the visitor she made an instinctive movement as if to hide this.