The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [2071]
"On the contrary, you have been the best," said I. "I have been trying to catch your likeness; and, while telling your story, you have unconsciously shown me the natural expression I wanted to insure my success."
NOTE BY MRS. KERBY
I cannot let this story end without mentioning what the chance saying was which caused it to be told at the farmhouse the other night. Our friend the young sailor, among his other quaint objections to sleeping on shore, declared that he particularly hated four-post beds, because he never slept in one without doubting whether the top might not come down in the night and suffocate him. I thought this chance reference to the distinguishing feature of William's narrative curious enough, and my husband agreed with me. But he says it is scarcely worth while to mention such a trifle in anything so important as a book. I cannot venture, after this, to do more than slip these lines in modestly at the end of the story. If the printer should notice my few last words, perhaps he may not mind the trouble of putting them into some out-of-the-way corner, in very small type.
L. K.
________
Go to Start
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
THE STORY BEGUN BY WALTER HARTRIGHT | -I- | -II- | -III- | -IV- | -V- | -VI- | -VII- | -VIII- | -IX- | -X- | -XI- | -XII- | -XIII- | -XIV- | -XV-
THE STORY CONTINUED BY VINCENT GILMORE | -I- | -II- | -III- | -IV-
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE
THE SECOND EPOCH
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE | -I- | -II- | -III- | -IV- | -V- | -VI- | -VII- | -VIII- | -IX- | -X-
THE STORY CONTINUED BY FREDERICK FAIRLIE, ESQ., OF LIMMERIDGE HOUSE
THE STORY CONTINUED BY ELIZA MICHELSON
THE STORY CONTINUED IN SEVERAL NARRATIVES
1. THE NARRATIVE OF HESTER PINHORN, COOK IN THE SERVICE OF COUNT FOSCO
2. THE NARRATIVE OF THE DOCTOR
3. THE NARRATIVE OF JANE GOULD
4. THE NARRATIVE OF THE TOMBSTONE
5. THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT
THE THIRD EPOCH
THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT | -I- | -II- | -III- | -IV- | -V- | -VI- | -VII- | -VIII- | -IX- | -X- | -XI-
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MRS. CATHERICK
THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT | -I- | -II- | -III- | -IV- | -V- | -VI- | -VII-
THE STORY CONTINUED BY ISIDOR, OTTAVIO, BALDASSARE FOSCO
THE COUNT'S NARRATIVE
THE STORY CONCLUDED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT | -I- | -II- | -III-
THE STORY BEGUN BY WALTER HARTRIGHT (of Clement's Inn, Teacher of Drawing)
I
This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.
If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public attention in a Court of Justice.
But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence. When the writer of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright by name) happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe them in his own person. When his experience fails, he will retire from the position of narrator; and his task will be continued, from the point at which he has left it off, by other persons who can speak to the circumstances under notice from their own knowledge, just as clearly and positively as he has spoken before them.
Thus, the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness--with the same object, in both cases, to present the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible