The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

122 the most unlikely places and always upon my choicest possessions. “Well, as long as you’ve come, Fred,” said I, “ you might as well make yourself useful. Just hand me up that small truck—the ‘ broken bricks,’ as the Irish serving maid called them— and IT’ll pack things away in this closet.” I was on a chair with my head and shoulders in the top of the wardrobe before mentioned. From this position I could see Fred’s reflection in the pler- glass across the room. He gathered up a lot of gimcracks from the center table and cheerfully brought them to me. Then he went over to the mantel. Not until that very moment had I thought of the fatal photo which Jack- son had insisted upon putting back with my collection. Fred would see it and might ask a questioh. Well, I felt freer to explain to him. He was not such a fool as—hem!—several other Hotchkisville people I might mention. In the glass I followed his move- ments. He began gathering up the photographs without comment, begin- ning at Amy’s end of the shelf. One after the other he stacked up until he came to the last in the row—the photo of the Unknown. I saw him look at it and expected an exclamation. “Bring ’em along, old man!” I called in haste. “ Never mind that one —chuck it in the rubbish pile. I’m tired of having the thing around, any- way.” { had my head deep in the wardrobe when he came. He handed up the bundle of photographs without a word. I glanced at the top one and saw that it was not the Unknown, and, to tell the truth, I sighed with relief. I had begun to believe by this time that I could not get rid of that fatal photo of my own volition. Perhaps Fred would have better luck. But IJ thought him very distraught during the evening—not at all his usual jolly self. I found it really an effort to enter- tain him. And he seemed anxious to dodge tell- ing me any news of the only person in Hotchkisville whom I really cared to hear about—his cousin, Amy Cartell. + agg THE ARGOSY. When the painting, and so on, was finished a few days later, and I replaced my gimcracks and gewgaws, I received quite a severe shock. Perching my family of photographs in their usual graceful row along the shelf, I groaned with despair when I came to the last one. There was the beautiful Unknown staring me out of countenance! I was in despair. Could I not get rid of the thing at all? Even Marshall had been unable to aid me in disposing of it. [ slammed the card down and turned away. Then I sprang back to the shelf with a sudden tightening at my heart and a startled erv. I searched the faces star- ing at me dumbly from the row of pic- tures, my hands gripping the edge of the shelf to hold me on my feet. The picture of Amy Cartell was no longer among them! The whole horrible truth was re- vealed to me in a flash of thought. I knew what I had done, and the dis- covery pretty nearly floored me. It had been Amy’s picture Fred Marshall held in his hand, and which I told him to throw away. As usual, Amy had graced one end of the mantel and the Unknown another. I had observed Fred’s movements in gathering up the photographs in the pier-glass across the room. Of course the glass had reflected the mantel end for end, and I had thought Fred at the Unknown’s end of the shelf when he was picking up Amy’s photo. Well, I felt—by Jove, I couldn’t be- gin to explain how I felt. Fred Marshall thought the world of his cousin. He was like a brother to her, and I was as positive as I was of anything in this world that he had gone home offended and would take it upon himself to tell Amy how I had spoken slightingly of her picture. He knew that there was something more than mere friendship between Amy and me. And it must have seemed to him. from my careless speech, that I had tired of the dear girl. If, in addition, he had noticed that strange woman’s photo at the other end of the shelf, he would doubtless put his own construction on the affair. [ could actually have erted with vex- GORMIGOOO (COL