The Shadow in the House Author:John Saunders 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: CHAPTER IV. GRACE TAKES THE KEYS FOR THE LAST TIME. "VES, Mr. Dell was married. That was the secret that he had come home to tell unto Grace, before bringi... more »ng the bride ; and which he had found it so hard to declare as he saw the welcome that she had prepared for him; as he heard of the success with which she had promoted his ambitious desires ; as he learned, through the unexpected revelations of Mrs. Addersley, that Grace really loved him; and, worst of all, as he learned it in Grace's own presence. Well, the truth was out at last, she knew it now:— he was married. The absences from home that had occurred so frequently of late, under the name of sketching tours, were all explained. Yes, there was an end for ever to the day-dreams in which Grace Addersley had for a long time indulged; day-dreams in which she had seen Mr. Dell, her husband, rising, step by step, to high office in the government ; animated and sustained by her skill and determination ; and, herself, through him, exercising, by virtue of her talent, beauty, and position, a political power and a social influence that were not a jot the less sweet to her in idea, that they would not be formally recognised. For the reality of power shecared much; for the semblance very little. But both were gone at a blow ! The honoured and brilliant wife of the future minister of England was reduced suddenly to her true self—Grace Addersley. The maiden love that had advanced so far as almost to woo, was rejected. The ambition that was to have mastered the world, had failed miserably in its first attempt to cope with one single unit of it. At the precise moment when she had brought all things to a climax of promise, and waited her reward—he had married another ! Grace Addersley heard as one might hear a death knell. She fell—cr...« less