The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

Se ee ee _ 520 A WEIRD INTERVAL. it away from him, until it had disappeared around the bend. ‘Then a half sigh of relief escaped him. ‘It would be too hard to go down in sight of port,’’ he told himself, with a sort of smile at the idea of such somber thoughts suggesting themselves. Then he turned and walked toward the other end of the car. Two or three gentlemen were standing by the further door. ‘The Tarrytown Accommodation has broken down ahead of us,’’ one of them explained. Cadwalader chafed at the delay. If it made them over half an hour late, he was afraid he would not be able to get to the Deerings’ that night. It would scarcely do, he reflected, to present himself after nine o’clock. | He went out on the platform and thence to the ground. He crossed over the down track, and stood for a moment by the edge of the Hudson. The waves, raised by the gusty west wind, beat noisily against the stone embankment, and now and then the spray dashed up into his face. He had not yet quite got his ‘‘ sea legs”’ off, and decided that it would be safer as well as more comfortable in the car. He had brought a novel with him: now that there was no motion he could read without discomfort to his eyes. He returned to his seat, and as he settled himself back, with his head resting on the plush, he thought with a sense of security that he was glad he had seen that brakeman go back with his lantern. He opened his book and began to read. ‘The story, which he had picked up hap hazard on the news stand in the waiting room at the Grand Central, seemed singularly appropriate.- It opened with the return of the lover after a year’s absence. He rings the bell at the home of the betrothed, inquires for her, and the servaut looks blank. ‘“ She has a i Cadwalader never read any further than that. A crash sounded in his ears, and then he was conscious of no other sensation until he heard a canary bird singing. He held his eyes closed for an instant longer to take in to the fullest extent the exquisite melody. ‘Then the song suddenly ceased, and the young man looked about him. All was strange. He was in bed, but where he knew not. And what was stranger still, this ignorance seemed to cause him no concern. He lay there blissfully enjoying the comfort of the couch, and watching, with the interest of a child, the flickering sunshine as it came through the bowed shutters and disported itself in fantastic shapes on the wall paper. He heard the murmur of voices in another room. ‘They were very soft, sweet voices. He wondered if it could be his mother and Cousin Kate talk- ing. He remembered now what had happened to him to give him this sort of stunned sensation in the back of his head. ‘The great bob sled he and his chum Harry Clark had built had run into Alonzo Peterman’s farm wagon, and he, Will, must have been pretty badly hurt. But this house didn’t seem like home. Perhaps, though, the doctors had thought it danger- ous to have him moved far, and he had been carried into a neighbor’s. He had just arrived at this conclusion when the murmur of voices in the Eomichbooks im ’