Before The Story
Before The Story - Chapter 1
_ BEFORE THE STORY
CHAPTER I
FIRST SCENE.--BOULOGNE-SUR-MER.--THE DUEL.
THE doctors could do no more for the Dowager Lady Berrick.
When the medical advisers of a lady who has reached seventy years of age recommend the mild climate of the South of France, they mean in plain language that they have arrived at the end of their resources. Her ladyship gave the mild climate a fair trial, and then decided (as she herself expressed it) to "die at home." Traveling slowly, she had reached Paris at the date when I last heard of her. It was then the beginning of November. A week later, I met with her nephew, Lewis Romayne, at the club.
"What brings you to London at this time of year?" I asked.
"The fatality that pursues me," he answered grimly. "I am one of the unluckiest men living."
He was thirty years old； he was not married； he was the enviable possessor of the fine old country seat, called Vange Abbey； he had no poor relati

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