The Argosy — page 256: what you’re looking at

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

Mason Maloumnce. 239 I shall be very lonely. Will you stay, dear, until you, too, marry and leave the old woman ?” The blood flamed in my cheeks; I stooped and kissed her fondly. “T will not leave you, Bonne-maman, unless—unless you send me away.” While I was speaking, the doctor came. Alas, my dread fore- bodings were realized! Bonne-maman was indeed ill, stricken with typhus fever. And so my dream ended. I looked my last upon Horace. He was obliged to leave for England, and the doctor was to telegraph him bulletins of Madame d’Harcourt’s health. In vain he urged me to let the sister-of-charity take my place beside her. I was firm. A duty was before me—clear and distinct: I was needed by the kind old lady who had befriended me and offered me a home. ‘True to the old friend, if it must be, I must risk losing the young friend, the more than friend. I do not deny that it was a struggle between duty and inclination, but she needed me, and he—well, “he loved and he rode away.” | Days grew into weeks, weeks lengthened into months; Bonne- maman varied, now better, now worse. At last my patience was crowned with success, my love won her back from the arms of death. She owed her life to my nursing. The yellow flag was still flying, and we were not out of quarantine, when Perrine, with her face shining like a beneficent sunbeam, importantly announced “a visit.” It was a bright spring morning, and as the visitor was in the sitting-room, I decided upon holding a parley from the garden, thus averting any danger of lingering infection. ‘Throwing a scarf round my head, I stood before the closed window and tapped lightly ; instantly it flew open and I was clasped in the arms of my stalwart lover. He laughed my fear of infection to scorn, suggested a warm climate for Bonne-maman, a month or two at Cannes—and as I also needed a thorough rest, he proposed changing Miss Eugénie Everard into Mrs. Horace Vernon. I think Perrine must have put Bonne-maman upto a thing or two. She was not surprised to hear the news, and I was con- siderably relieved to find her own. ‘She was glad her one darling was to marry her other darling.” CONMMICMOOOKS.c©