The Argosy — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

Mrs. Raven’s Temptation. 85 doubt were swaying her. ‘I have not told you a lie—but the very truth, whether you knew it before or not.” ‘You declared positively that I did know it; and what you say now may be as true as that declaration was.” “T thought you must know it; I thought you could not fail to know it. Go back to whence you came, and ask Mrs. Raven if she believes you to be her son.” ‘¢T shall do nothing of the kind,” he answered, indignantly. ‘‘ My mother is sad and solitary enough, without being annoyed with absurdities such as these.” The woman drew herself back. He thought she looked strangely like a serpent going to spring. The resemblance grew stronger, as her next words came from between her teeth with a hiss, “Did the late Squire Henry Raven make such provision for you as a favourite son might have expected?” That blow told. Frank for the moment lost the reserve he had hitherto maintained. ‘‘The will my father made was natural enough,” he said. ‘‘ He simply trusted me to my mother during her lifetime.” , The woman came a step nearer to him. ‘‘ Suppose,” she whispered, ‘“ suppose that he had reason to hope that long before Mrs. Raven’s death you would have taken the advice I have given you to-day p— the advice about your wife that is to be? ‘That will was dated very shortly before he died—is it not so?” “That is true,” admitted Frank. “Tf he could have spoken to you between the making of that will and his death, how do you know what he might have told you? or what he might have bidden you to do?” she asked, in the same strange, low, yet clearly-audible voice which somehow seemed to make Frank’s flesh creep. “He is speaking to you zow,” she went on solemnly. “You will not heed me: so he shows himself to me, and bids me describe him to you. He is standing at your right side now. He is a tall man, with a pleasant, country face and iron-grey hair. He—yes, he has an imperfection in one front tooth. He puts his left hand on your right shoulder: he wears a ring—a large cornelian stone in a heavy gold setting. It has a figure engraved on it. He holds it so that I can see it. It 1s a woman, a sort of goddess, with a horn of plenty inher hand. Hist! He lets it fall. What was that sound?” Frank started. Something had undoubtedly fallen with a chink against the leg of achair. In the shadowy light and with swimming head, he stooped to grope for it. There it was: his dead father’s ring! ‘There was no mistaking that familiar jewel—an ancient heir- loom—which he had played with as a baby, and had sometimes been let take off his father’s finger to put for a minute on his own during his boyhood. Nothing within the range of Frank’s imagination could have struck ECORnnicloooks (GO An