Produced by Daniel Fromont. HTML version by Al Haines.
VIXEN BY M. E. BRADDON IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I.
AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," ETC. ETC.
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET 2 vols. AURORA FLOYD 2 vols. ELEANOR'S VICTORY 2 vols. JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY 2 vols. HENRY DUNBAR 2 vols. THE DOCTOR'S WIFE 2 vols. ONLY A CLOD 2 vols. SIR JASPER'S TENANT 2 vols. THE LADY'S MILE 2 vols. RUPERT GODWIN 2 vols. DEAD-SEA FRUIT 2 vols. RUN TO EARTH 2 vols. FENTON'S QUEST 2 vols. THE LOVELS OF ARDEN 2 vols. STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS 2 vols. LUCIUS DAVOREN 3 vols. TAKEN AT THE FLOOD 3 vols. LOST FOR LOVE 2 vols. A STRANGE WORLD 2 vols. HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE 2 vols. DEAD MEN'S SHOES 2 vols. JOSHUA HAGGARD'S DAUGHTER 2 vols. WEAVERS AND WEFT 1 vol. IN GREAT WATERS & OTHER TALES 1 vol. AN OPEN VERDICT 3 vols.
CHAPTER III. "I Want a Little Serious Talk with You"
CHAPTER VIII. Glas ist der Erde Stolz und Glück
CHAPTER XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure"
CHAPTER XII. "I have no Wrong, where I can claim no Right"
CHAPTER XIII. "He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species"
CHAPTER XIV. "He was worthy to be loved a Lifetime"
CHAPTER XVII. Where the Red King was slain
The moon had newly risen, a late October moon, a pale almost imperceptible crescent, above the dark pine spires in the thicket through which Roderick Vawdrey came, gun in hand, after a long day's rabbit-shooting. It was not his nearest way home, but he liked the broad clearing in the pine wood, which had a ghostly look at dusk, and was so still and lonely that the dart of a squirrel through the fallen leaves was a startling event. Here and there a sturdy young oak that had been newly stripped of its bark lay among the fern, like the naked corpse of a giant. Here and there a tree had been cut down and slung across the track, ready for barking. The ground was soft and spongy, slippery with damp dead leaves, and inclined in a general way to bogginess; but it was ground that Roderick Vawdrey had known all his life, and it seemed more natural to him than any other spot upon mother earth.
On the edge of this thicket there was a broad ditch, with more mud and dead fern in it than water, a ditch strongly suspected of snakes, and beyond the ditch the fence that enclosed Squire Tempest's domain--an old manor house in the heart of the New Forest. It had been an abbey before the Reformation, and was still best known as the Abbey House.