The Argosy — page 330: what you’re looking at

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

A Rare Case. ig Mattie answered that she wanted no fine things, but went away smiling as he meant she should do, and only paused now and then to look after the two men as long as they remained in sight. It was natural that she should feel a little afraid of this unknown lady, Adam’s mother, but that fear was the only shadow on Mattie’s path. She had given her heart frankly away, and an instinct seemed to assure her that she had given it into safe keeping. It was an idyll, a poem, as true a love story as the world has seen, that had written itself here in this out-of-the-way spot on the lonely Sussex Downs : and for two days longer Mattie was in Paradise—a fool’s Paradise, Eliza Bankes said later. On the third day they might look for Adam to return, but that day passed, and many another, until the days were weeks, and the weeks months, and he neither came nor wrote. Mattie remembered how when she had turned to look back for the last time upon that homeward walk, she had seen his figure distinct against the sky for one instant, and in the next lost it entirely as he passed out of sight over the swelling line of hills. Just so she seemed to have lost him in one instant out of her life. And yet, she never lost faith and trust in him ; never ceased to watch for his coming again. It was not long before Mrs. Bankes, who had once believed in him as much as any of them, began to shrug her shoulders, and remark that it was a poor tale, but a common one enough. Mattie had had her way, and made Mr. Armitage marry her, but he had regretted it as soon as the deed was done; they would never see anything more of him; she might make up her mind to that; only Drew ought to hunt him out and force him to make Mattie an allowance, or do something—Mrs. Bankes did not clearly specify what—to make it up to her, since it was evident that, supposing the marriage was a true one—and how could they tell whether it was or not when the girl had gone off in that sly way by herself, which was not by any means conduct they had a right to expect from her— even if the marriage was a true one and Mattie a wife at all, what was she but a deserted wife for the rest of her days? Drew after a time, either goaded to the step by his sister’s loud- voiced arguments, or prompted to it by his own sense of what was due to Mattie, not only took pains to ascertain that the marriage was real enough, but the further pains of searching for and finding the address of Adam Armitage in London. By that time Mattie had fully made up her mind that her husband /ad, after all, sailed with the expedition, and that his letters to herself had either miscarried or been intercepted. She was ready to make up her mind to anything rather than to admit the faintest suggestion that he was false to her and to himself—to the high standard that she knew, and that the farmer knew, was the one by which Adam measured men and things, and his own life and conduct. It was strange how this girl and her former master both trusted Adam in the face of his COMICOOO© S (C©) im