The Argosy — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

en ne 160 The Missing Rubies. As they were leaving the house, they met Olga Gradizoff returning from an afternoon walk. She was a heavy, uninteresting girl, and Beatrice scarcely gave her a thought. Almost in silence those two, Alma and Beatrice, walked back to Oak Lodge; and the latter slipped away, as soon as possible, to her own room. CHAPTER XV. THE PORTRAIT. THERE was a letter from Godwin the next morning. It came up to Beatrice’s room with her early cup of tea; but not before the ‘address had been seen and the handwriting recognised by Miss Lindrick. Alma turned back to her pillow for a moment with a dull pain in her heart. She remembered the days, not so very long ago, when the sight of that handwriting had given her a little thrill of joy. And then there had been later days, when his letters had ruffled the smooth surface of her life and caused her some troubled moments of doubt and indecision. She was glad, on the whole, that.the affair was ended; nor did she wish to mend the links that she had voluntarily broken. Yet it seemed heartless on his part to have consoled himself so soon. He had loved her so well that she had pictured him living a lonely life and forswearing the society of women for her sake. Beatrice came down to breakfast with a sunshiny face, determined to bear with all Mr. Redburn’s whims and make herself agreeable to everyone in the house. She looked so gloriously happy that Alma, for once in her life, very nearly betrayed the envy that was gnawing at her heart that day. Her morning greeting was a little chilly ; her face looked old and worm when the fresh sunlight fell upon it, and Colonel Lindrick thought that his daughter was losing her youth very fast. There was no walk after breakfast. Mr. Redburn took possession of Beatrice at once; and Alma left her to her fate. But she listened with perfect good-humour to the old man’s prosy talk, and wrote some of his letters with the utmost cheerfulness. The world looked so bright just then that it was easy to endure any little nuisance. If Mr. Redburn were cross, why should she mind? He was old. He meant no unkindness by his little sour speeches. It was her duty to be tender and considerate to the poor old invalid who had been her father’s friend. At luncheon, Alma had quite recovered her spirits. The girls walked out in the afternoon, and came home across the sunny, park- like field that gave Meadow House its name. The field path was a private way, trodden only by the Earles and their friends. It terminated in a narrow alley, hemmed in by shrubs, comicbooks.com