The Summit House Mystery; Or, The Earthly Purgatory. L. Dougall
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L. Dougall
The Summit House Mystery; Or, The Earthly Purgatory
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066215606
Table of Contents
Chapter I A HUT IN THE PRECIPICE
Chapter II THE UNWELCOME GUEST
Chapter III A STRANGE DISMISSAL
Chapter VI EVENTS ON DEER MOUNTAIN
Chapter VII THE GODSON POSSIBILITY
Chapter VIII THE WORDLESS LETTERS
Chapter IX THE SPECTRE IN THE FOREST
Chapter X A SKELETON IN THE FIRE
Chapter XI THE MYSTERIOUS 'DOLPHUS
Chapter XII THE SECRET OF THE OAK
Chapter XIII A SOB IN THE DARK
Chapter XIV THE GOING OUT OF EVE
Chapter XV THE QUESTION OF GUILT
Chapter XVII HERMIONE'S ADVOCATE
Chapter XVIII A STARTLING DISCLOSURE
Chapter XIX TANGLED IN THE COIL
Chapter XX THE TERRIBLE CONFESSION
Chapter XXII THE EARTHLY PURGATORY
Chapter XXIII WHAT 'DOLPHUS KNOWS
Chapter XXIV THE WOMAN WITH A SECRET
Chapter XXVI A TORTURED CONSCIENCE
Chapter XXVII A HOUND ON THE SCENT
Chapter XXVIII PROBING A DEEP WOUND
Chapter XXX THE VISION IN THE HUT
Chapter XXXII WHAT A TERRIER FOUND
Chapter XXXIII THE RESTORATION
Chapter XXXIV ALL THAT HAPPENED
Book I
The Summit House Mystery
Chapter I A HUT IN THE PRECIPICE
In the southern part of the Appalachian Mountains the tree-clad ridges fold and coil about one another. In this wooded wilderness the trend of each slope, the meandering of each stream, take unlooked-for turnings, and the valleys cross and twist. It is such a region as we often find in dreams, where the unexpected bars the way or opens out into falling vistas down which our souls must speed, chasing some hope or chased by unknown fears.
On a certain day a man called Neil Durgan passed through the village of Deer Cove, in the mountains of Northern Georgia. When he had left the few wooden buildings and the mill round which they clustered, he took a path by the foaming mill-stream and ascended the mountain of Deer.
For more than a century before the freeing of the slaves, the Durgans had been one of the proudest and richest families of Georgia. This man was the present head of the house, sole heir to the loss of all its lands and wealth. He was growing old now. Disappointment, Poverty, and Humility walked with him. Yet Joy, the fugitive, peeped at him through the leafless forest, from the snow-flakes of the dogwood and from the violets in the moss, laughed at him in the mountain torrent, and wooed him with the scent of the warming earth. Humility caught and kissed the fleeting spirit, and led her also in attendance upon the traveller's weary feet.
Deer Cove is more than two thousand feet in altitude; Deer Mountain rises