The Argosy — page 353: what you’re looking at

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

The Amethyst Seal. 281 self from falling. When Bruce ceased speaking, he saw through the dusk, not the face of Harold Dare, but a white death-like mask out of which looked two eyes, full of anguish and unutterable despair. For a few seconds the two men stood gazing at each other without aword. Then Bruce suddenly flung up his arms. “Oh, Harold! Harold!” he cried, in a voice choked with emotion, and turning, he covered his face with his hands and all the man within him was utterly broken. When he looked round, some minutes later, the door was open, and he was alone in the room. At the end of half an hour he was still sitting there in the dark, “revolving many memories.” Then one of the servants brought him anote. ‘“ From Mr. Dare, sir,” said the man. Bruce went into the next room where there was a lighted lamp, and opened it. This is what he read : “When this reaches your hands I shall have left your father’s house, never to enter it again. For that of which I am guilty I have no excuse to offer beyond this, that it was done under the pressure of a temptation which you would be one of the last to understand or palliate. You, in your position, have never been assailed by such temptations, consequently they would be incomprehensible to you. * One favour you can do me; it is the last I shall ever ask of you. My secret is yours, and yours alone: let it remain so. Facts could not be altered; no good could be done by allowing it to pass your lips. Let your father still think kindly of me; let Elinor Trenton never know me for the castaway I am. “ And now, farewell. Bruce—dear Bruce !—I shall never, never forget you ! “HH. D.” He was gone, and from that day forward Wenlock Towers knew him no more. Once, about a year later, the two cousins encountered each other casually in Oxford Street. Bruce stopped instinctively and held out his hand, but Harold deliberately averted his eyes and pushed on his way through the crowd, seeing and yet not willing to see. Captain Wenlock never revealed the secret that had come so Strangely into his keeping. An excuse was readily found for his cousin’s abrupt departure from the Hall. When Sir George died, two years afterwards, it was found that he had bequeathed his young kinsman a sum of eight thousand pounds. This amount was duly paid over to the legatee who, a little while later, threw up his situation under Government and quitted England with the avowed intention of settling down on a sheep farm among the far-away wilds of Australia, determined if possible by a new and honourable life to redeem the past. CORnICclooo SS (GO) mn