In trying this new ground, I am not turning my back in
doubt on the ground which I have passed over already. My one object in
following a new course is to enlarge the range of my studies in the art
of writing fiction, and to vary the form in which I make my appeal to
the reader, as attractively as I can.
There is no need for me to add more to these few prefatory words than is
here written. What I might otherwise have wished to say in this place, I
have endeavored to make the book itself say for me.
TO
FRANCIS CARR BEARD
(FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND),
IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE TIME WHEN
THE CLOSING SCENES OF THIS STORY WERE WRITTEN.
NO NAME.
THE FIRST SCENE.
COMBE-RAVEN, SOMERSETSHIRE.
CHAPTER I.
THE hands on the hall-clock pointed to half-past six in the morning. The
house was a country residence in West Somersetshire, called Combe-Raven.
The day was the fourth of March, and the year was eighteen hundred and
forty-six.
No sounds but the steady ticking of the clock, and the lumpish snoring
of a large dog stretched on a mat outside the dining-room door,
disturbed the mysterious morning stillness of hall and staircase.
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