To the Bitter End A Novel Author:Mary Elizabeth Braddon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " Ye shall know them by their fruits," said Mr. Harcross sententiously. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" Sir Francis looked at him wonde... more »ringly for a moment, but said nothing; whereupon somebody began to criticise the fashionable attire of the year '20, and the conversation drifted into another channel. CHAPTER XXXIII. "and One With Yoij i Could Not Be." Mr. Harcross was alone in the picture gallery that rainy August afternoon. There was a grand billiard match going 011 downstairs, a fight for the championship of Clevedon, between Captain Hardwood and Mr. M'Gall, the Scottish reviewer, and all the youth and sprightliness of Clevedon, made sprightlier by a luncheon which had been prolonged to double its usual length on account of the dismal weather, was assembled to witness the struggle. Mr. Harcross could hear the babble and laughter as he paced the long gallery, from whose panelled wall departed Clevedona seemed to scowl upon him in the doubtful light. There had been a talk of the day improving after luncheon, and barometers had been tapped inquiringly by dainty knuckles; but the dense gray sky had grown grayer and more leaden, and the steady rain of the morning had only become a little heavier in the afternoon. There was more wind now than there had been in the morning, and a stormy gust drove the rain against the windows every now and then, and the ancient sashes rattled like the ports of a ship at sea. The long picture gallery, cheerful enough on a sunny day, when the landscape outside the windows was a thing of beauty, looked somewhat blank and dismal this afternoon. There was a wide fireplace at each end of the room, with spindle-legged silver tongs and shovel chained to the wall of the chimneypiece: the stately apartment would have been all th...« less