Excerpt from Beatrice The night was very bleak. The wind blew keen and strong, as, pushing open the garden gate, Mr. Richard Gordon stumbled on through the darkness to the door of his cottage. When he reached it he stood still and wiped his forehead, on which the perspiration stood in thick drops, cold though the evening was, and slowly though he had walked home from the City. He did not knock at once, and twice, when he stretched his hand towards the brass ring, he let it fall down again. At length he took heart, and a feeble knock, scarcely like that of the master of the house, startled Mrs. Gordon h'om her sleep on the sofa, in the warm parlour. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.