The Argosy — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

Court Netherleigh. gt rather would she cut off her right hand than do what she had done: she would die, rather than do such a thing again. It was altogether a dreadful prospect yet—at least, it might be. What if they would not exonerate Charley without inculpating her? Not her husband ; she did not fear him; old Howard, and the bankers, and those aldermen on the bench? How should she meet it? where should she run to? what would the world say of her? lLady Adela started from the cushion affrighted. Her lips were more parched than her mother’s had been, and she rang for some tea on her own score. _She sat back in her chair after drinking it, her pretty hands lying listless on her pretty dress, and tried to think matters out. As soon as her husband came home she would throw herself upon his bosom and confess all, and plead for mercy with tears and kisses as she had never pleaded before, and give him her word never to touch another card, and whisper that in future she would be his dear wife. He would not refuse to forgive her; no fear of that; he would tell her not to be naughty again, and make all things right. She would tell him that she might have loved him from the first, for it was the truth, but that she steeled her heart and her temper against him, because of his name and of his being a City man; and she would tell him that she could and should leve him from henceforth, that the past was past, and they would be as happy together as the day was long. A yearning impatience grew upon her for his return as she sat and thought thus. What hour was it? Surely he was at home some- times earlier than this ! As she turned her head to look at the timepiece on the marble console, Hilson came in, a note on his small silver salver. “One of the clerks brought it up from Leadenhall Street, my lady,” he remarked, as he held it out to her. ‘‘ He said there was no answer.” It was not her husband’s writing, and Lady Adela opened it with trembling fingers. Had some new and dreadful phase turned up in this unhappy business? ‘The fear, that it had, flashed through her. ‘DEAR MapAm,—Mr. Grubb has been sent for to his mother, who is dangerously ill. He requested me to drop you a line to say he should probably remain at Blackheath for the night. I therefore do so, and despatch it to you by a clerk. 3 Your obedient servant, “ TAMES HOWARD.” ‘So I can’t do it,” she cried, thinking of all she had been planning out, something like resentment making itself heard in her heart. “What a wretched evening it will be!” Wretched enough. She did not venture to go to Chenevix House while lying under its wrathful displeasure ; she had not the face to show herself elsewhere in this uncertainty and trouble. COMIC OOO <5) (SO)