The Argosy — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

B® Ke) Gwen. “Then I am afraid, Miss Gwen, I must submit to your displeasure, for it is, alas, too true!” “True? and you dare to stand there and tell me so as composedly as if it were just an every-day matter!” exclaimed Gwen with kindling cheeks, “As if my father were nothing to you, or the school, or the boys, or mamma, or me! Oh! I call it mean to throw us all over like this, just for some fad of your own! I should have thought you were too loyal to act so!” And Gwen resumed her seat from which she had risen at his entrance, and busied herself over the cups of tea. ‘*What can I say to her, Mrs. Ellis?” said Mr. Dallas, appealing to his hostess for aid. ‘You must know, all of you, that it is a terrible trial to me to contemplate leaving. It will be the greatest wrench of my life I feel sure. But I also feel sure that it must be made.” “In that case, Gwen, I do not see that we have any right to up- braid Mr. Dallas any more,” said Mrs, Ellis, struck by the careworn look on her visitor’s face, and the unusual gravity of his tones. ‘“ He must know his own affairs better than we can, and we have no right to intrude upon them.” Mr. Dallas went across to the tea-table, and said in a voice, whose earnestness startled Gwen, as it had done on the afternoon before when he was trying to comfort her: ‘Will you not believe me, Gwen, when I tell you that I must go, but that the very thought of it makes me so miserable, that I cannot trust myself to talk about it yet.” She looked up at him then, and held out her hand almost humbly as she answered : “Of course I believe you. I know you always act from a sense of duty, but yet it is just possible that you may sometimes make a mistake like the rest of us, isn’t it?” “Very possible indeed. Only when one’s inclinations pull very strongly in what one believes the wrong direction, one has to beware,” he answered, taking a cup of tea to her mother. When he returned for his own, Gwen spoke again, with evident es this time, and a painful blush spread over her face as she asked : “It hasn’t anything to do with me and my disgrace, has it? I shouldn't think of asking you to coach me again; and I mean to work so hard, that I really hope I may pass next time.” Mr. Dallas was rather puzzled how to reply, as she glanced up at aa with a deprecating look in her face; so assuming a rallying tone, e said : ‘What a foolish child you are to talk about disgrace. I thought we had settled that point yesterday.” “Tam not a child, and I want to know if it has anything to do with me,” persisted Gwen. ‘“ Whether I have worried you into going away?” comicbooks.com