The Argosy — page 354: what you’re looking at

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

338 Fack and Fill. After that, Jill heard nothing of him for over six months, and although she had not seen any mention of his death in the papers, hope, growing less and less, had almost left her. In spite of her good courage, it was with a white face and a weary step that she went about her duties; she, who was wont to be so cheerful in the days gone by, that she had been called by the family, “ Sunshine.” She had now a strange fancy for sitting, towards sunset, alone in the bay window, where she had last parted from her lover ; and one evening: it was a Sunday: having excused herself from going with the rest to church on the plea of fatigue, she lay there in a rocking- chair, dreaming sweet day-dreams of that bright, manly young face which had looked so entreatingly into hers, and seeming to hear again his reproachful cry, “ Ah, Jill, if you cared as much as I do!” A day-dream, and yet a reality; for as she raised her eyes, Jack, or else his ghost, was standing beside her ! But it was no ghost who flung his arm round her neck, and repeated again and again: “ My darling! My Jill! my treasure!” “Oh! Jack, Jack; I thought you would never come !” ‘So did I,” he said, solemnly. ‘ But look at me, my dear one: I am not the same. I——” Then she saw that the right sleeve of his coat was hanging empty at his side. ““No, Jack, you are not the same,” she said, catching up her breath, “ for you are mine now, whatever is in store for either of us. Only forgive me for not having trusted you sooner.” “Yet that was well, my love: because you see if we had been promised to each other, and I had come back to you like this, why you would have felt obliged to have me, and — perhaps— perhaps ” ‘I should never have been so worthless as that, I hope; but doing without you has taught me to value you now, and if the lines have been hard ” She was crying on his poor wounded shoulder. Please God, the hard lines are over for us both: for me they are at any rate,” he whispered, looking down at her fondly and proudly, ‘‘ for the angels are not all in heaven yet.” comicbooks.com