The Argosy — page 263: what you’re looking at

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

244 Mrs. Kaven’s Temptation. the Agates’ house? And as that name passed through her thoughts, a blush, almost a girlish blush, burned on her cheek. Again, if all her suspicions were true (and now they seemed to her to be no longer jealous fears but menacing facts, though she resolved to die rather than breathe them again), whence did Frank derive what Leonard truly called “‘ the Raven face.” But the manner of the writing’s appearance affected Mrs. Raven’s nerves scarcely more than its disappearance, which yet she knew well enough to be due to nothing but her own excited eagerness. She now began to feel as if what she saw had been but the hallucination of her own heated brain. She slipped off the bed, went softly back to her boudoir, and put her hand up the chimney. Yes, there was the charred paper. At least, she had not imagined the incident: why, therefore, should she think she had imagined the words? How had they come on the paper, and who had written them? And, in sheer lack of any other outlet for suspicion, she turned it again on Charity. There was soot on her white hands: and while she was washing it off with hasty disgust, a knock came to the door. She cried, ‘“‘Come in,” and only remembered it was locked when she heard the handle -fruitlessly turned: and she unlocked it hastily. It was only Janet Mackay come about her usual duties. Mrs. Raven went back to her bed, and lay down. She felt alone in the whole world, nay, in the whole universe ; and she cowered into the darkness as if in hopes there to be alone, even from herself. “Tm afraid you are not well, ma’am,” said the Scoteh maid, kindly. ‘“T think I am not, Janet,” she answered: ‘‘at any rate, I feel very faint and tired. I think I will go to bed.” And as she rose languidly to undress, she inquired whether Mr. Raven had returned. ‘‘No, ma’am,” answered Janet. ‘‘ Budd does not expect him yet.” ‘Will you tell Mr. Raven I wish to speak with him here when he comes in, Janet. I wish to speak with him particularly,” she added. ‘‘ Did you get through your work this morning ?” Now, Janet’s work that morning had been the sewing of fresh lace on sundry occasional tables and brackets in the drawing-rooms. Janet answered that she had quite finished it. ‘“T)o you remember if Charity fetched anything from the drawing- room while you were there ?” asked her mistress. Janet reflected. It is not easy to recall, at a moment’s notice, the comings and goings of those who come and go about us every day. But Janet’s memory served her. ‘‘’‘Yes, ma’am,” she said; ‘* Charity went to the cabinet in the back drawing-room, and took away some paper.” ‘Was she long in doing a “Just half a minute, ma’am, as it seemed to me.” “That is all right,” said Mrs. Raven evasively, feeling terribly that it (or that something) was all wrong. Gomicbooks.Gco m