The Argosy — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

THE ARG *"y, 96 Anne Hereford. | He ARGOS an. 1, 1868. “You need not have feared violence from me. I should have handed him over to the police, nothing more.” There was a mocking sound in hts voice as he spoke. Selina sat down and put her feet on the fender. ‘“‘Thate to dine without somebody at the table’s head,” Mr. Barley said, turning to the door. ‘If you will not come, I shall ask Charlotte Delves to sit down.” ‘Tt 1s nothing to me who sits down when [I am not there.” “He departed with the ungracious reply ringing in his ears: and un- gracious I felt itto be. She bolted the door again, and pulled the blue velvet cushion off my head. “ Are you smothered, child? Get up. Now, mark me: you must not say a word to Mr. Edwin Barley of what happened at the summer- house. Do not mention it at all; to him, or to anyone else.” ‘¢ But suppose I am asked, Selina ?” “ How can you be asked? Philip King is gone, poor fellow; George Heneage is not here; and who else 1s there to ask youe You surely have not spoken of it already ?” she continued, in a tone of alarm. I had not spoken of it to anyone, and told her so. Jemima had questioned me as to the cause of my terror, when I ran in from the wood, and I said I had heard a shot and a scream; I had not courage to say more. _“ That's well,” said Selina. She sent me to rest, ordering Jemima to stay by me until I was asleep. ‘‘The child may feel nervous,” she remarked to her, in an under tone, but the words reached me. And I suppose Jemima felt nervous, for one of the other servants came too. On the following morning Mrs. Edwin Barley was ill. It transpired that Mr. Edwin Barley, with his brother and some more gentlemen, had been out part of the night, looking after George Heneage. It was getting towards morning when they returned, and Mr. Edwin Barley would not go to his wife’s room to disturb her. She lay in bed, and her voice, as she spoke to me, did not sound like her own. ‘Are you ill, Selma? Why do you speak so hoarsely ?” “‘T feel very ill, Anne. My throat 1s bad—or my chest, I can scarcely tell which: perhaps itis both. Go down stairs, and send Miss Delves to me.” I have said that I was an imaginative, thoughtful, excitable child, and as I hastened to obey her, one sole recollection (I could have said fear) kept running through my brain. It was the oracular observation made by Duff, relating to his mistréss and the fog: “It’s enough to give her her death!” Suppose she 42d caught herdeath? My fingers, fastening my narrow waist-band, trembled at the thought. | The first thing I saw when I went down was a large high screcn of COMICEOOOKS.CO