The Lost Viol by M. P. Shiel

The Lost Viol - A Fantasy classic.

The Lost Viol - A classic tale by author of classic SF novel, "The Purple Cloud".

Matthew Phipps Shiel (1865–1947) was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent.

M. P. Shiel is remembered mostly for supernatural and scientific romances. His work was published as serials, novels, and as short stories. The Purple Cloud (1901) remains his most famous and often reprinted novel.

Excerpt:
Kathleen now went up a lane on the left leading to her own place, "The Hill," while Sir Peter and the footman went on down yew and hawthorn hedges, till the light of Woodside Farm appeared; and great was the wonder of the old farmer and of Mrs. Langler when they saw Sir Peter come to see Hannah, for the baronet was a rather crusty and rusty type — tall, with a stoop and an asthmatic chest — from whom a jerk of the head was about all that people on the estate expected in the way of friendliness.

Sir Peter saw Hannah, who lay unconscious from her drenching, stayed a little with the old couple and old Dr. Williams, and then trudged back to the Hall.

He sat up so late that night, sniffing his three dried apples, that Bentley, his old house-steward, became uneasy. He was writing a long letter; for his discovery that night that Hannah Langler was twenty-four, not twenty-three, as he had somehow thought, was now hurrying him to an action which for fifteen years had lain planned in his heart.