The Argosy — page 198: what you’re looking at

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184 Edina. mine is now, and the torment I endure, even you might feel a passing shade of pity for me. There are moments when the weight seems more than I can bear. “We have taken a small, cheap lodging near; No. 5, in the next side street ; and what the future is to be I cannot tell. It- of course falls to my lot now to keep them, as it is through me they have lost their home, and / shall try and do it. Life will be no play-day with me nov. “T thought it my duty to tell you this, Edina. While holding back from the task, I have yet said to myself that you would reproach me if I did not. And you will not mistake the motive, since you are aware that I know you parted with every shilling you had, to provide us with the last home. “Write a few words of consolation to my mother; no one can do it as you can; and don’t spare me to her. “Your unhappy cousin, “ CHARLES.” Frank Raynor once made the remark in our hearing that somehow everybody turned to Edina when in trouble. Charley had instinctively doneit. Not because it might lie in his duty to let her know what had come to pass, to confess his own share in it, his imprudent folly ; but for the sake of his mother. Though Edina had no more money to give away, and could not help them to another home, he knew that if any- one could breathe a word of comfort to her, it was Edina, One thing lay more heavily upon his conscience than all the rest ; and if he had not mentioned this to Edina, it was not that he wished to spare himself, for he was in the mood to confess everything that could,tell against him, almost with exaggeration, but that in the hurry of writing he had omitted it. On one of the previous nights that he had been studying his part, Mrs. Raynor caught sight of the light under his door. Opening it, she found him sitting on the bed in his shirt sleeves, reading. There and then she spoke of the danger, and begged him never to sit up at night again. The fact was this: Charles Raynor had nothing gn earth to do with his time ; an idle young fellow, as he was, needed not the night for work; but his habits had grown so desultory that he could settle to nothing in the day-time. The answer from Edina did not come. Charles said nothing of having written to her; but he did fully hope and expect Edina would write to his mother. Morning after morning he posted himself outside the door to watch for the postman; and morning after morning the man passed and gave him nothing. ‘Edina is too angry to write,” concluded Charles at last. “This has been too much for even her.” And he betook himself to his walk to London. . No repentance could be more thoroughly sincere ‘than was Charles comicbooks.com —_— =