The Castle Of The Shadows

								


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Transcriber's Notes:
Some changes have been made to correct typographical errors and
inconsistencies.
The author's use of a mixture of US and UK English spelling has been
retained.

THE CASTLE OF THE SHADOWS

  Books by
C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON


THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR
THE PRINCESS PASSES
MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR
LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER
ROSEMARY IN SEARCH OF A FATHER
MY LADY CINDERELLA
THE CAR OF DESTINY
THE CHAPERON
THE PRINCESS VIRGINIA
SET IN SILVER

    ETC., ETC.

            The

    Castle of the Shadows

            By

    MRS. C. N. WILLIAMSON


New York
Doubleday, Page & Company

           1909

   AUTHORIZED EDITION
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.

          TO

   A GOOD MARCHESE

    THIS STORY OF
A WICKED MARCHESE

        CONTENTS

  CHAPTER                               PAGE

     I. Where Dreamland Began             3

    II. The Story Told by Two            31

   III. A Mystery and a Bargain          61

    IV. The Closed Door                  84

     V. The Lady on the Verandah        108

    VI. The End of the World            134

   VII. The Gates Open                  158
VIII. Number 1280                     178

    IX. A Cry Across the Water          201

     X. "Once on Board the Lugger"      224

    XI. Virginia's Great Moment         248

   XII. Stand and Deliver!              270
XIII. The Game of Bluff               294

THE CASTLE OF THE SHADOWS

The Castle of the Shadows

CHAPTER I
WHERE DREAMLAND BEGAN

According to the calendar it was winter; but between Mentone and the
frontier town of Ventimiglia, on the white road inlaid like a strip of
ivory on dark rocks above the sapphire of the Mediterranean, it was
fierce summer in the sunshine. A girl riding between two men, reined in
her chestnut mare at a cross-road which led into the jade-green twilight
of an olive grove. The men pulled up their horses also, and all three
came to a sudden halt at a bridge flung across a swift but shallow river,
whose stony bed cleft the valley.
The afternoon sunshine poured down upon them, burnishing the coils of the
girl's hair to gold, and giving a dazzling brilliancy to a complexion
which for twenty years to come need not fear the light of day. She was
gazing up the valley shut in on either side with thickly wooded hills,
their rugged heads still gilded, their shoulders already half in shadow;
but the eyes of the men rested only upon her. One was English, the other
Italian; and it was the Italian whose look devoured her beauty, moving
hungrily from the shining tendrils of gold that curled at the back of her
white neck, up to the small pink ear almost hidden with a thick, rippling