The Argosy — page 344: what you’re looking at

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

324 The Master of Greylands. And they decline to show them ; and his uncle, James Castlemaine, at an interview in the field, seeks to strike him. Anthony comes home to the inn here, and writes that last letter to me, and puts it in the post late at night. Then he and the landlord go strolling out together in the moonlight, and by and by they see Mr. James Castlemaine go into a lonely place of cloisters called the Friars Keep, and he, my r husband, runs in after him; and he never comes out of it again. The landlord, waiting for him outside, hears a shot and an awful cry, but he does not connect it with the cloisters ; and so he walks about till he’s weary, thinking the uncle and nephew are talking together, and—and Anthony never at all comes out again! Yes, it is very plain: it is too plain to me: that shot took my dear husband’s life. James Castlemaine, fearing he would make good his claim to the estate and turn him out of it, has murdered him.” The wind shrieked, as if it were singing a solemn requiem ; the small panes of the casement seemed to crack, and the white curtain fluttered. Charlotte Guise hid her shrinking face fora moment, and then turned It on the shaking curtain, her white lips parting with some scarcely breathed words. ‘‘ Tf the spirits of the dead are permitted to hover 1n the air, as some people believe, perhaps zs is here now, at this very window! Seeking to hold commune with my spirit ; calling upon me to avenge him. Oh, Anthony, yes ! I will never rest until I have found out the mystery of your fate. I will devote my days to doing it!” As if to encourage the singular fancy, that the whispered story and the surroundings of the hour had called up in her over-strung nerves and brain, a gust wilder than any that had gone before swept past the house at the moment with a rushing moan. The casement shook ; its fastenings seemed to strain: and the poor young lady, in some irre- pressible freak of courage, born of desperation, drew aside the curtain, and looked forth. No, no; nothing was there but the wind. The white snow lay on the ground and covered the cliff skirting the beach on the right. The night was light, disclosing the foam of the waves as they rose and fell ; clouds were sweeping across the face of the sky. The little girl stirred in bed and threw out her arms. Her mother let fall the window curtain and softly approached her. The hot face wore its fever-crimson ; the large brown eyes, so like her father’s, opened ; the red lips parted with a cry. ‘¢Maman! Marie soif; Marie veut boire.” ‘Oh, is she fatherless?” mentally cried the poor mother, as she took up the glass of tisane. ‘‘ Qui, ma petite! ma cherie! Bois donc, Marie; bois !” The child seized the glass with her hot and trembling little hands, and drank from it. She seemed very thirsty. Before her mather kid «9 ne! ei