Argosy (UK), January 1955 — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

* ——— _ a a WALTER DE LA MARE a. re. So may a mere draught, the jar of traffic, passing foot- Its fate was then suspended by a thread. Its downfall could be _ bound to betray himself. She would at last know. __ It was perhaps in part her passionate nature that had made her _ so superstitious. Was he? Strangest of facts, she couldn’t really tell. Not for certain. With a faintly whimsical smile, he 4 would do a dare and walk in bravado under a ladder—paint-pot _ or no paint-pot. He preferred other numbers to thirteen. At sight of a magpie and solely on his own account, he would turn his head, spit, laugh, and apologize. Once when she herself, after he had stolen behind her and put _ his hand over her eyes, had struggled free and had seen, through _ glass, the exquisite gold thread of the crescent moon tilted very _ low (old moon in the new moon’s arms)—when his very aim had _ been to prevent this—he had seemed really shaken. _ He had seized her hands, had kissed her cheek and mouth - almost frenziedly, saying, “‘'There, it must be all right now, -mustn’t it? God forbid!” Well, surely if he was as superstitious even as that, she couldn’t but surprise some exclamation, some instinctive disclosure, some dreadful change of face when in its own moment the por- _ trait should crash to the ground! And now, she herself never for an instant ceased to be awaiting that crash. If only she had not _ come to hate and fear the face it portrayed, perhaps—but it was — too late now. Or was it too late? She stole soundlessly to the window again. An age seemed to have passed since she had last looked out. It could have been - only a few moments. Her husband was where she had left him. _ Soon, he would begin his afternoon’s potterings. There was Turner, watering-can in hand, coming towards him. How dreadfully weary, narrowed in, even disconsolate he _ looked, as if all but worn out by some inward struggle. A shud- _ dering revulsion of feeling came over her. Think of it! Some _ day she might perhaps be looking back on this from beyond an awful gulf of utter darkness. An evil done, even if it remain _ undiscovered, is an ineradicable horror, a scar no power in earth _ or heaven could ever remove. Well, she was awake now. She must do her utmost to undo _ what she had done, and must chance discovery. With trembling knees and hands, she dragged up a chair, _ mounted it, and with both arms extended, attempted to lift the _ portrait from the wall. To snap and re-knot the cord while it = — ni 4 Even the rotation of the earth may affect at last a hanging pic- — _ steps, and the slow, secret, incessant tug of the force of gravitation. only a question of days. And then, surely, surely, he would be © 3 JW bt! teat ie ok eke comicbooks.com —i