Shivers for Christmas by Richard Dalby Page B

dénouement , and yet a dénouement which was pleasing to me since it relieved my conscience. You handed me the envelope containing the story.
    â€˜Did you send that?’ was your question.
    â€˜I did—last night, or rather early this morning. I mailed it about three o’clock,’ I replied.
    â€˜I demand an explanation of your conduct,’ you said.
    â€˜Of what?’ I asked.
    â€˜Look at your so-called story and see. If this is a practical joke, Thurlow, it’s a damned poor one.’
    I opened the envelope and took from it the sheets I had sent you— twenty-four of them.
    They were every one of them as blank as when they left the paper-mill!
    You know the rest. You know that I tried to speak; that my utterance failed me; and that, finding myself unable at the time to control my emotions, I turned and rushed madly from the office, leaving the mystery unexplained. You know that you wrote demanding a satisfactory explanation of the situation or my resignation from your staff.
    This, Currier, is my explanation. It is all I have. It is absolute truth. I beg you to believe it, for if you do not, then my condition is a hopeless one. You will ask me perhaps for a résumé of the story which I thought I had sent you.
    It is my crowning misfortune that upon that point my mind is an absolute blank. I cannot remember it in form or in substance. I have racked my brains for some recollection of some small portion of it to help make my explanation more credible, but alas! it will not come back to me. If I were dishonest I might fake up a story to suit the purpose, but I am not dishonest. I came near to doing an unworthy act; I did do an unworthy thing, but by some mysterious provision of fate my conscience is cleared of that.
    Be sympathetic, Currier, or, if you cannot, be lenient with me this time. Believe, believe, believe , I implore you. Pray let me hear from you at once.
    (Signed)
    H ENRY T HURLOW .
II
    (Being a note from George Currier, Editor of the ‘Idler,’ to Henry Thurlow, Author.)

    Your explanation has come to hand. As an explanation it isn’t worth the paper it is written on, but we are all agreed here that it is probably the best bit of fiction you ever wrote. It is accepted for the Christmas issue. Enclosed please find a cheque for one hundred dollars.
    Dawson suggests that you take another month up in the Adiron-dacks. You might put in your time writing up some account of that dream-life you are leading while you are there. It seems to me there are possibilities in the idea. The concern will pay all expenses. What do you say?
    (Signed)
    Yours ever,        G.C.

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WOLVERDEN
TOWER
by Grant Allen
    __________________________________________
    Grant Allen (1848–1899) was a Canadian-born writer who spent most of his career in Britain. He became one of the most prolific and famous authors of the 1890s, his most controversial works being The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897) and The Woman Who Did (1895), a novel (in the Keynotes series) in which the title-figure decided that free love was less degrading than the bondage of marriage.
    ‘Wolverden Tower’, one of the best of his supernatural tales, appeared in his collection Twelve Tales (1899).
I
    M aisie Llewelyn had never been asked to Wolverden before; therefore, she was not a little elated at Mrs. West’s invitation. For Wolverden Hall, one of the loveliest Elizabethan manor-houses in the Weald of Kent, had been bought and fitted up in appropriate style (the phrase is the upholsterer’s) by Colonel West, the famous millionaire from South Australia. The Colonel had lavished upon it untold wealth, fleeced from the backs of ten thousand sheep and an equal number of his fellow-countrymen; and Wolverden was now, if not the most beautiful, at least the most opulent country-house within easy reach of London.
    Mrs. West was waiting at the station to meet