The Argosy — page 248: what you’re looking at

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

256 Parkwater. CHAPTER VIL. SOPHIA’S DESOLATION. PASSION-WEEK arrived, and Lord Tennygal with it. Very much surprised, was he, to find the house ia this uncomfortable and undecided. State, one party in it mutually accusing the other. He listened, in his calm, matter-of-fact way, to the two sides of the case. His wife, when they were alone, actually shed tears; the affair, she told him, had so worried her, between her anxiety to do what was right, and her fear to do what was wrong, that she felt nearly as ill as ever. Lord Tennygal took an opportunity of speaking to his brother- in-law. “‘ Devereux,” he said, “this is very bad. Lady Tennygal’s governess ought to have commanded your respect. Were it not for the dangerous position your affairs are in, you should not remain in this house another hour.” ‘‘There’s nothing wrong,” answered Captain Devereux, ‘ nothing at all; itis a delusion altogether. That old mischief-making cat fell asleep in her room after dinner and must have had a dream ” “ Psha, man !” interrupted Lord Tennygal, ‘‘don’t attempt to palm off your dreams upon me. Mrs. Barry heard Miss May say you could not marry Lady Harnet, because you were under a solemn engagement to marry der. She said something about danns. If 7 ‘* Mrs. Barry did not hear her, then. She’s a 7 ‘Hear me out, Devereux, if you please. If you have been gaining ‘Miss May’s affections, under the promise of marriage, you are bound in honour to marry her, although she is but a governess. If, on the other hand, you have in any way compromised the poor girl, I will never for- give it, and I hope Lady Harriet will not. But whatever the truth 1s, I must be made acquaiuted with it, that I may know how to act.” ‘IT have given my word once,” sullenly replied Captain Devereux ; “T don’t see the use of repeating it ten times over. I deny it altogether ; and I say that Mrs. Barry either invented or dreamt it.” “You persist in this p—to me?” “TIT do. And to everybody else.” ‘Then I must take another course.” “Took here, Tennygal. Mrs. Barry has been against my marriage with Harriet from the first; and I don’t believe she’d stand at any invention to put it aside. I1f she didn’t dream the thing, she invented it. What good would it do me, do you suppose, to talk or walk with Miss May?” “This is all you have to say to me upon the point, Devereux?” “Every word.” _ COMIC OOOKS.COn