The Argosy — page 272: what you’re looking at

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

256 ‘ Edina. “Have you had your supper, Sam?” asked Mrs. Frank, from the intervening door. “No, ma’am.” “Then go and get it.” Sam passed her on his way to the kitchen. She stepped forward to the counter, opened the day-book, and began searching for Dame Bell’s address. The street door was usually kept closed now, not open as it used to be; and Daisy went to it on tip-toe, and slipped the bolt. There was nobody to hear her had she stepped ever so heavily: but we are all apt to think that secret transactions require silent movements. Taking up her place behind the counter, she turned the leaves of the book again. But, turn and look as she would, she could not see the address sought for. It is true she was looking in a desperate hurry, standing metaphorically upon spikes and ploughshares. What if Frank were to return suddenly? Or Sam from his supper? “No, the address is not there!”—shutting the book, and pushing back the pretty hair from her beating temples. “ He is too cautious to have entered it. Other patients’ names are there, but Dame Bell’s is not. The affair is underhanded altogether : clandestine from beginning to end.” And from that night Mrs. Frank Raynor began a course of action that she previously would have believed herself incapable of. She watched her husband. In her eagerness to discover where these Bells lived—though what service the knowledge could render her she would have been at a loss to know had she mentally asked the question—she occasionally followed him, Keeping her bonnet downstairs in readiness, she would put it on hastily when he went out, and steal after him. Three or four times a week she did this, Very contemptible indeed Daisy felt it to be, and her cheeks blazed consciously now and again : but jealousy has driven a woman to do more contemptible things than even this. But for the unsuitability of her present life, as contrasted with her previous tastes and habits and surroundings, and for its utter monotony, causing her to feel weary unto death day after day, Margaret Raynor might never so far have forgotten herself. The pursuit was quite exciting, bringing to her a kind of relief; and she resolutely drove away all inconvenient qualms of conscience. So, there imagine that you behold them. Frank turning out at the surgery door, and hastening this, way or that way, as if his feet were aided by wings: and when he is a few yards off, say just abreast of the oil and pickle shop, Daisy turns out after him. It would be generally a tedious and tormenting chase. He seemed to have so many patients to visit, here, there, and everywhere; on this side the streets and on that side, and round corners, and down courts, that his pursuer was generally baffled, lost him for good, and had to return home in despair. Meanwhile, as time went on, Frank, unconscious of all this) was comicbooks.com