Argosy, Vol. 1 (December 9, 1882) — page 227: what you’re looking at

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

220 THE ARGOSY. should there be the slightest cause for alarm. He had his own reasons for this visit as well. “It will throw the police off the scent,” he said to himself. ‘“ They would never suspect me of being mixed up with the affair.” “Oh! by the may, monsicur Ile comte,” said the prefect, as René was about to ride off, “ it’s very strange, but we have never discovered the slightest trace of the fellow who assaulted you in the train.” René smiled grimly. “ I don’t blame you for not catching him,’ he replied. That evening about sunset a solitary figure on horseback might have been seen slowly wending its way towards a mountain road leading toward the Pyrenees, and the border line of France and Spain. He was tall and swarthy. His clothes were of a rough and common character, and the great slouch hat set rakishly on his head and adorned with a peacock feather added to his picturesque appearance. The horse he rode was a tough, wiry little beast, with a shaggy mane; and, like its rider, there was something fierce and wild in its aspect that made a solitary herder they passed on the way cower and cross himself in terror. The rider noticed the fear he inspired and smiled grimly. “Good!” he muttered to himself. ‘‘ He takes me for an outlaw. The brigands will receive me with open arms. And when they know my errand they will call me comrade and brother! ” Something in the situation seemed to arouse a wild humor in the man, and he laughed aloud, waking the echoes of the sleeping hills with the sounds of his discordant mirth. The herder flew down the hillside like one possessed, driving his flock of-sheep before him, and calling on all the saints to preserve him from the evil one. CHAPTER X.—A SIGNAL FROM THE SEA. WHEN Cottrell joined the countess the next morning in the library, for the ostensible purpose of giving her a lesson in English, he was glad to see that there was no awkwardness in her manner of greeting him, and she made no allusion to the incidents of the night before. He was greatly surprised, therefore, when in the course of an hour, she suddenly put down her book and looked up at him with that odd mixture of girlish shyness and quiet dignity that was one of her chief charms. “Monsieur, I am afraid I acted in a way last night that must have seemed tnmaidenly in your eyes,” she said simply, the rich warm color creeping up over her face and neck. “ You see, my life has been so lonely since I came here that when at last I found a true friend, I wanted him to know that I-was grateful. Besides, you seemed so much older than I, and so big and protect- ing, that almost unconsciously I made you fill the place of the father I never knew.” Her voice had grown low and sad. “ But I know,” she went on, suddenly growing pale, “ I had no right to regard you in that light.” Cottrell did not know what to say in the face of her girlish artlessness. It was his turn to blush now. GORGE OOO A) UN ceo