Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 260: what you’re looking at

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

BY FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCE. my lady. He may be coming in at any moment, and I must be at the door.” He did not return. The night wore away, and the following day dragged itself into the past; still he did not come. After that there were weary days and nights, and then there were weary weeks; but there was never a word or a sign of Lord John—never a trace of him after he had passed through the door on his wedding night. The great house was closed and the servants dismissed. Robert, alone, re- mained in charge of the mansion, and Robert, alone, knew that its mistress, the beautiful young countess dwelt there in solitude while the world— their world—believed that she and the earl were traveling abroad; and that same world had so many other things to engage its attention, that it soon made up its mind to forget them until they returned. Robert—dear old Robert—was maid, cook, everything, even father to Mercy, through that awful time. When he was not attending to her wants, he was wandering the streets in search of his master. He was tireless, almost- sleepless, possessed of one idea —that he could and one day would find Lord John. Mercy never left her rooms; her tearless eyes never looked from the windows, except at night when the room was dark and her white, set face could not be seen from without. But she waited and hoped; and as time went on, waited almost without hope. Once, and only once, Robert sug- gested Scotland Yard and the police. “No,” she replied; “ we will wait. If he lives, he will return. If he 1s dead, there is no need to search. In either case we must be silent. The world shall not know when or how he went away, nor when nor how he re- turns. If he is found, you, Robert, will find him, or he will return to me here.” Thus the weeks lengthened into months, until they were near the end of the twelfth of his disappearance; SA 251 until time lacked only a few days to arrive at the first anniversary of the wedding; and still the world in which Lord John had lived and moved, be- lieved that he was traveling abroad with his wife; and still Robert and the countess dwelt on alone, in hiding, in secrecy and in despair. CHAPTER II. THE NEW YORK INCIDENT. THE date was the same as that of the wedding at the churchof the Annuncia- tion in London.” The time, allowing for the difference of more than three hours between the two cities, was also the same, for long years afterwards John Ashton figured it out carefully, as- tounded and awed by the fact that it was SO. The scene was altogether different, for it was the interior of a bank at a time when all banks are supposed to be deserted—shortly after one o’clock in the morning. The streets outside were as light as they always are 1n the business portions of a great city, where the frequent points of illumination dispel the gloom, however dense it may be. Humanity strode past the place in either direction, just as it always does wherever it 1s hived within the confines of a metro- politan center. It never sleeps; it is always moving, thinning out during the middle watches of the night; thickening up again as the hours tend towards dawn. But it is a heedless humanity, and it rarely looks to the right or the left. It did not look towards the bank that night, or if it did, it paid no heed, for the man who entered the side door with a key that fitted the lock, paused after he had entered, and stood for a full minute before an open window, where all who passed that way might have seen him. Thcre was one, a policeman, who did see him, but he also recognized him, and so thought no more about it. COMIC DOO <S CO