223

XXI. "THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS FROM THE NORTH," 235

XXII. THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY, 246

XXIII. LINDELA, 257

XXIV. AS FROM THE DEAD, 268

XXV. HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND, 279

XXVI. THE PLACE OF THE HORROR, 290

XXVII. THE HORROR, 301

XXVIII. "ONLY A SAVAGE!" 313

XXIX. "A DEEP--A SOLITARY GRAVE," 324

XXX. "GOOD-BYE, MY IDEAL!" 334

XXXI. CONCLUSION, 348

THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER.

CHAPTER I.

"SWEET HOME!"

She was talking _at_ him.

This was a thing she frequently did, and she had two ways of doing it.
One was to talk at him through a third party when they two were not
alone together; the other to convey moralizings and innuendo for his
edification when they were--as in the present case.

Just now she was extolling the superabundant virtues of somebody else's
husband, with a tone and meaning which were intended to convey to
Laurence Stanninghame that she wished to Heaven one-twentieth part of
them was vested in hers.

He was accustomed to being thus talked at. He ought to be, seeing he had
known about thirteen years of it, on and off. But he did not like it any
the better from force of habit. We doubt if anybody ever does. However,
he had long ceased to take any notice, in the way of retort, no matter
how acrid the tone, how biting the innuendo. Now, pushing back his chair
from the breakfast-table, he got up, and, turning to the mantelpiece,
proceeded to fill a pipe. His spouse, exasperated by his silence,
continued to talk at--his back.

The sickly rays of the autumn sun struggled feebly through the murk of
the suburban atmosphere, creeping half-ashamedly over the well-worn
carpet, then up to the dingy wall-paper, whose dinginess had this
redeeming point, that it toned down what otherwise would have been
staring, crude, hideous. The furniture was battered and worn, and there
was an atmosphere of dustiness, thick-laid, grimy, which seemed
inseparable from the place. In the street a piano-organ, engineered by a
brace of sham Italians, was rapping out the latest music-hall
abomin