Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before. She
has been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world where the
great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. She had come
unscathed through it, but what might have happened if she had gone
unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him of his danger? What
indeed! She had been saved by the fearless outspokenness of the local
Press.
THE INTERLOPERS
In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the
Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as
though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the range of
his vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for whose presence he
kept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman's calendar
as lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled the
dark forest in quest of a human enemy.
The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with
game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt
was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded,
but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner's territorial
possessions.
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