The Argosy — page 365: what you’re looking at

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

34.6 Verena Fontaine's Rebellzon. give it up? The Rose of Delhi is expected back now: let him take her again.” “You know why he will not, Herbert. And he must do some- thing for a living. I wish you would not object to his engaging himself to Robert Ashton. If ¥ ‘Why don’t you wish anything else that’s lowering and degrading P You are as devoid of common sense as he!” retorted the parson, walking away in a fume. Matters were in this state when we got back to Crabb Cot; to stop at it for a longer or a shorter period as fate and the painters at Dyke Manor would allow. Jack urging Robert Ashton to promise him the bailiff’s post — vacant the next midsummer; Herbert strenuously objecting to it; and Robert Ashton in a state of dilemma between the two. He would have liked well enough to engage John Tanerton ; but he did not like to defy the Rector. When the Squire heard this later, his opinion vacillated, according to custom: now leaning to Herbert’s side, now to Jack’s. And the Fontaines, we found, were in all the bustle of house-moving. Their own house, Oxlip Grange, being at length ready for them, they were quitting Maythorn Bank. ‘Goodness bless me!” cried the Squire, coming in at dusk from a stroll he had taken the evening of our arrival. ‘“‘ I never got such a turn in my life.” ‘“‘ What has given it you, sir?” ‘‘What has given it me, Johnny? why, Sir Dace Fontaine. I never saw any man so changed,” he went on, rubbing up his hair. ‘“* He looks like a ghost, more than a man.” ee ae” ‘‘He must be ill. Sauntering down that narrow lane by Maythorn Bank, I came upon a tall something mooning along like a walking shadow. I might have taken it for a shadow, but that it lifted its bent head, and threw its staring eyes straight into mine—and I pro- test that a shadowy sensation crept over myself when I recognised it for Fontaine. You never saw a face so gloomy and wan. How long is it since we saw him, Johnny?” ‘‘ About nine months I think, sir.” ‘‘The man must be suffering from a wasting complaint, or else he has some secret care that’s fretting him to fiddle-strings. Mark my words, all of you, it is one or the other.” “Dear me!” put in Mrs. Todhetley, full of pity. “I always thought him a gloomy man. Did you ask him whether he was ill ?” ‘Not I,” said the Pater: ‘“‘he gave me no opportunity. Had I been a sheriff’s officer with a writ in my hand he could hardly have turned off shorter. They had moved into the other house that day, he muttered, and he must lock up Maythorn Bank and be after them.” This account of Sir Dace was in a measure cleared up the next CORNICLDOO;KS, (Eve)