The Argosy — page 367: what you’re looking at

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

Lhe Mastcr of Greylands. 347 study was the middle room in the side corridor; Madame's bedroom was nearly opposite the room, beyond hers being Harry Castlemaine’s. _ Standing outside her door with a flushed face and panting breath in the silence, not liking the work she was about to do, but believing it a necessity thrown upon her, she at length softly crossed the corridor and opened the outer door leading to the study. Ashort, dark, narrow passage not much more than a yard in length, and there was another door. This was locked, but the key was in it; she turned the key, ard entered the room. Entered it with a shock of disappointment, for it was bare and empty. We are all apt to form ideas of places and things as yet unseen. The picture in Charlotte Guise’s mind had been of a spacious apartment filled with furniture, littered with papers. What she saw was a small square room, and no earthly thing in it, papers or else, but a table, some chairs, and a bureau against the wall: or what would have been called in her own land a large secrétaire, or office desk. She gazed around her with a blank face. The table and chairs were bare: no opportunity there for anything conreaiet The tureau was locked. She tried it; pulled it, pushed ; but the closed-down lid was firm as adamant. ‘Tf there exists any record of him, it 1s in here,” she said, half aloud. ‘“‘ I must contrive means of opening it.” She could not do it that day. It would have to be done with a false key, she supposed ; and, that, she had not in her possession. Before quitting the room, she approached the window, and looked forth cautiously at the sea rolling in the distance ; at the Fnar’s Keep oppo- site; at the fair green lands lying between that and Greylands’ Rest. Charlotte Guise shuddered at a thought that crossed her. “If he did indeed kill my poor husband and has laid him to rest in the Friar’s Keep, how can he bear to be in this room, with that building in front to remind him of the deed ?” The day was before her: it was not yet twelve o'clock. Blankly dis- appointed with her failure, a thought struck her that she would go to Stilborough, telling Miles she should not be in to dinner. She wanted to make some purchases; for the wardrobe brought over from France had not been extensive, either for herself or child. And so, just as Anthony Castlemaine had once, and but once, set off to walk to the market-town, did his poor young wife—nay, his widow— set off now. She was a good walker, and, so far, enjoyed the journey and the sweet spring day. She saw the same objects of interest (or of non-interest as people might estimate them) that he had seen: the tall, fine trees, now budding into life; the country carts and waggons ; the clumsy milestones ; the two or three farm houses lying back amid their barns and orchards. Thus she reached Stulborough. ; fi ‘clock, and she was When she got back to Greylands it was five o CE. ANG SNe Was