The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

460 THE GOLD DELUGE. the materials which obstinately retained their secrets and only now and then, as though to annoy him, showed him a slight, a very slight trace of what he was looking for, only to let him grope around again in the dark like a blind man. He became excited, grasped at this and that, in the hope that accident might be his ally and show him the right road, but no; only the same well known phenomena, well known elements, the formula of which he could rattle off at his fingers’ ends. Not a sign, not a trace of those five milligrams of gold, which disappeared so mysteriously. Where had they vanished to? ‘That was the momentous question. CHAPTER II.—Ar Last. AGAIN the summer’s end drew near, the autumn storms came and soon al] the beautiful tints of the trees gave way to a bleak gray of the naked limbs. The nights lengthened and were cold, and the first snow of the new season had begun to fallin November. Erik’s wife sat at the window sewing ; without, the weather was dreary and uncomfortable. ‘The sooty factory smoke covered everything in view, the roads were a mass of soft mire, and the blue sky had been hidden some time. “How long was this to last with Erik, she asked her- self? Things could not go on much longer as they had. Erik had hardly slept during the last two nights. In the morning his wife laid her hand on his forehead and found it hot and clammy. She tried with all a woman’s diplomacy to prevail upon him to change his course but in vain. Matters had gone too far. She grieved severely over the thought that she herself had perhaps been partly the cause of his becoming imbued with the one idea, by telling him one day that the passing laborers believed he was making gold. They were right after all. Her anger against him had vanished, and she felt that his strange behavior was not the result of any intention on his part to neglect her; worriment and sorrow alone prevailed and caused her the deepest grief; she had seen that for matters to continue as they were then, could end but in ruin. Her attention was arrested by the approaching steps of some one running. She raised her eyes and grew pale with fright. Her husband was hurrying toward her. He wore no hat and his hair was flying in the wind. Likea flash of lightning it came over her that he had lost his reason ! She rose, but was rooted to the spot—she stood as though transfixed. Her husband rushed through the door wildly, with his face glowing like fire from an all consuming fever, while the veins on his forehead stood out, swollen to the thickness of whipcords. ‘There !’? With this one word he threw a small package wrapped in paper on her sewing table. ‘The heavy concussion caused it ¢o open and a fine brown powder was scattered all over-the top of the table, while Erik _ grasped his wife in his arms and pressed her to him so tightly that she nearly lost her breath. He let her go, then sank down before her on his knees, buried his face in the folds of her dress, and hysterically sobbed forth the one word: ‘‘ Gold/”’ Eomichook Bae