The Argosy — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

Margaret's Grave. 65 toinutes. It will wait here ten minutes also, to allow an express to “Please to give me a ticket for—any place that is far off,” said Leslie. “‘ First-class.” And the bureau dame gravely handed her a ticket with a long name upon it, and charged her twenty-three francs, Down on a bench at the darkened end of the platform sat poor Leslie, not daring to go into the waiting-room lest she should be found. If her husband came up in pursuit, the waiting-rooms were the first places he would make for. What a deplorable oversight it was to have brought no veil! But in these impromptu flights one cannot think of - everything. “* Margaret Viola, the beloved wife of Richard Ensor !” The fatal words kept repeating themselves in her mind. “ Eighteen 2? she presently said in a dull dreamy kind of way. . “ Did she tell him she was only that? Deceit, deceit ; deceit on all sides. She must be six- and-twenty at least.” Here came the train, slowly and cautiously into the station, as it is the good custom of French trains to come. Leslie glided out of her obscure corner, hoping in her ignorance to take her place at once. Ske would feel safer in the train than out of it. “Leslie! Leslie Ensor !” The salutation, spoken with intense surprise, came from a lady who was descending from a carriage, and met Leslie face to face. A piercing shriek echoed along the platform—the shriek of a woman in terror. Leslie thought she saw the dead; for in this woman, who spoke to her, she recognised Margaret Grey. And before the shriek had well faded from her lips, she fell down in a fainting fit. The porters carried her into the spacious waiting-room, and ran for some water. and when the train had departed after the express had passed, and the station was quiet again, madame of the bureau came in to see what she could do for the sick lady. But the lady was better then, and had got half through the necessary explanation with Margaret Grey. ‘And you are not dead! And you never were Richard’s wife?” ‘Neither the one nor the other,” said Margaret. ‘I landed at Havre a day or two ago from a passenger vessel bound to that port from America, and have made my way on here —— “To see me?” interrupted Leslie. “To see my poor young sister’s grave,” answered Margaret. “I did not know you were not in London. I meant to come to your resi- dence there shortly, to deliver the messages and other things I have brought you from your mother.” “But ycu must tell me all about the other Margaret; all, all,” sobbed Leslie. “My dear child, I have told you all: perhaps :you-were too) bewil- VOL, XXII. F comichooks.com