The Argosy — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

22 Monsieur Silvain’s Secret. newborn love. How bright they seemed, but how distant, looking back at them from the shadowed present! It was little more than a year since she had parted from her lover, but that long dreary year seemed to have put a gulf between them, in spite of the tender letters which bridged it across. Her heart thrilled with the longing to see him again; to hear once more the dear familiar voice which to her was the sweetest music the world could give. * Renée !” She paused with a start, looking wonderingly, half-incredulously at the speaker, into whose arms she had almost run in her pre-occupa- tion. It was Maurice himself who stood before her, looking down at her with “liquid eyes of love.” “Renée, don’t you know me?” he questioned smiling, as he put out his hand. She drew a deep breath, and her face brightened all over with joy- ful surprise. “Oh, Maurice, is it really you?” was all she could find to say. “I believe so,” he answered soberly, “though your incredulous look just now almost made me doubt my own identity. Was I so far from your thoughts at that moment, dear ?” **So near to them, on the contrary, that your sudden appearance seemed almost magical,” she returned, with a happy laugh. ‘I had no idea you were in Paris.” ‘Nor has anyone else,” he replied, as he drew her hand through his arm, and walked on with her. “At the present moment I am supposed to be at Pontoise, where my father sent me on a business mission, but, finding myself so near to you, how could I resist the temptation of coming? I was positively hungering for a sight of you. Oh, my darling,” he added, pressing her hand to his side, ‘“‘ what hap- piness it is to be together again, if only for a few stolen moments. If you knew how my heart has ached all these weary months !” “IT know—by my own,” she whispered. **And how has the world been using you, sweetheart, since we parted a year ago?” he went on, looking down at her tenderly. “Fairly well, on the whole,” she responded with a smile, “though to tell the truth, I find the road to success steeper than I expected.” “Too steep for your little feet to tread alone. The task you have undertaken is too heavy for you, Renée. Why will you not give me the right to help you?” She shook her head. “T have put my hand to the plough and I must not look back,” she rejoined with a serious smile. ‘After all, work is no hardship when one is young—and when one has a motive as strong as mine.” “Ts it no hardship that you should be wearing out your youth in toil and poverty to atone for your father’s fault, while I, who would so gladly take the task upon myself, am kept apart from you by my parents’ mercenary comicbooks.com