The Argosy — page 216: what you’re looking at

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

The Sapphire Cross. 201 first half-hour, found no difficulty in returning the key to its old place on the wall. When Guido was arrested he breathed freely. As for his strange behaviour at the trial, that may have been caused in part by a demented hatred of Guido, as well as by mere terror of the con- sequences to himself were the painter not convicted. A few days after his arrest Cioronski had a return of the epileptic malady from which he had suffered in a mild form when a child, but which had only shown itself again in him after his wife’s death. But a few weeks elapsed before he was removed from prison to an asylum, where he died a raving lunatic. Meanwhile the law, with maddening delay, with endless expendl- ture of stamped paper, red-tape, and talk, was unweaving the web which it had drawn round Guido. For in Italy a man whom the tribunals have branded as a criminal, cannot be released from one day to another, even when the sentence pronounced against him 1s proved to be unmerited. | So that many weary weeks and even months elapsed before the order for release came, and Guido, the ghost of himself, sought refuge and consolation in Lucia’s pitying arms. In after years, Lucia often looked back to that meeting, and though in wifehood and motherhood her lot was a happy one, still she felt that nothing, zoffzmg in her life again could equal the fulness of that moment’s perfect joy. For we purchase our highest happiness with a heavy burden of pain ; our most steadfast trust is born of many illusions, first cherished, then renounced; and on the altars of our inmost soul the records of eternal faith and hope are written with the heart’s best blood. And no brow on which the crown of thorns has not rested once is ever lifted with the one supreme emotion of thankfulness to the lasting glory of the sunlight, or the peaceful benediction of the stars. CONnNICLOOKS.EO