The Argosy — page 181: what you’re looking at

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

164 Mrs. Raven’s Temptation, a long window opening on the garden, and I have had a strip walled off for his especial use. In summer time, when the leaves are thick, he walks up and down there for hours. Poor Theodore’s mind has entirely returned to him—not quite the same, perhaps, but changed somewhat, as a person’s constitution is often said to be changed when they recover from a high fever. He is not even eccentric in any little detail. He has not a single hallucination. Singularly excitable as his nerves are, so that the least sound or movement irritates them, he never imagines anything that does not exist. He could not bear anything now but perfect solitude. He dreads the sight of the outer world,” ““T don’t see what is the use of talking over these things,” re- marked Evelyn, coldly. ‘I have always admired your wisdom, Aunt Gertrude, for burying them in silence.” “There is no use,” replied Miss Agate, ‘‘ only, having had to dis- cuss them with strangers to-day, makes it seem natural, I suppose, to speak of them with friends—unless indeed I weary you ?” she added quickly, with ready self-rebuke. ‘“ Weary us! No, indeed you do not,” said Philip, warmly. ‘‘ What a sad fate that poor young wife’s was !” “Ay,” sighed Miss Agate, “dear Marian Snowe! If ever, as I have but now told you, there was a good sweet woman, she was one. I never thought my brother Theodore loved her half enough. And yet he could have married her for nothing but pure love. For she had no money, nor any family connections. She was only a governess. She adored Theodore. I used to say she spoiled him. And she was ever kind to me, and did me a great deal of good.” “ She must not have had too bright a life from the beginning, being an orphan,” remarked Philip. ‘‘T daresay not,” said Miss Agate. ‘‘ But the lady who adopted her was good to her. Marian had never known her parents, but she thought much of them: she used to say she had ever tried to be good, so that when they should meet her in the next world they should have nothing to reproach her with.” ‘““ How good that was !” cried Frank involuntarily. ie Grand philosophy !” assented Philip, in his really genial spirit, but half-mocking words. ‘Ah, yes, few were like her,” sighed Miss Agate. ‘Theodore, in marrying Marian Snowe, gained a prize. Yet,” she added, “there were people found to say that his marriage could not have been happy, for that, from his wedding-day, they had noticed him growing moody and morose.” “And was it so?” ‘Well, I too had noticed him sorely changed from what he had been earlier ; but in reality the change had begun long before his marriage. It seemed to me to set in while he was away from our house, acting as tutor in a gentleman’s mansion in Surrey. After he EONNIE NCO KS (EO) m