The Argosy — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

94 Mrs. Raven’s Temptation, surprise, ‘‘which must, if possible, be brought to light; and we know two pairs of eyes give surer evidence than one. I would not trouble you if Philip were at home, and I do not care to speak about the affair to my aunt, or any other part of the family.” ‘T will come, Mr. Raven.” ‘Tm not asking you to do anything you think wrong, I hope? I know how much you dislike secrets and mysteries.” | Her sweet eyes looked into his with great sincerity. ‘I do not think it wrong,” she assured him; ‘‘and I am not doing it out of any curlosity—or desire to pry into hidden things. I am doing it to help you to do what you feel is right. You do feel that, don’t you P” ‘T do—I do,” said Frank, earnestly. ‘I cannot tell you much about this business yet, Miss Cleare ; but there are false assertions (as I believe them) to be unmasked, and facts to be found out, and I have got to do it, if I can.” The drawing-room was in a flood of mellow sunshine. Straight before them, as they entered, stood the two china jars, and the one had a green rim and the other had a blue one. The geraniums, erowing in the common red earthenware pots that the china jars held were luxuriant and beautiful. That which stood out of the ereen-rimmed vase had white blossoms; the other, scarlet. ‘‘It was the blue-rimmed one she told me to look in,” observed Frank, as he stood over the two. ‘‘ Now for it.” He lifted the earthenware pot from the blue-rimmed vase. There was nothing beneath it, except a little damp mould. ‘¢ Nothing,” he said, moving aside, to let Alice peep in, too, while he held up the red pot, and looked around it and beneath it, to make sure that nothing escaped him. ‘Could she have meant you to look in the flower-pot itself?” asked Alice. The question brought back to him the cold, hard voice of the woman, repeating her instructions, “beneath the flower.” ‘I’m afraid she must have meant that,” he said. ‘“These flowers were here before I came,” Alice observed, as she watched him gently probing the mould with his finger. A few minutes’ experiment convinced him that it would be quite easy to turn the whole out without injuring the plant or breaking the pot. Alice looked round. She caught sight of an old news- paper, and quickly spread it on the ground, in front of the table. Frank held the pot and the plant poised lengthways in his two hands; he began to gently shake and draw it. Out it came at last, with a sudden jerk. A few tiny stones rattled down on the paper; some- thing else also fell with a heavy thud. It was a sealed envelope, thick and white. Alice stretched out her hands, and silently took the pot and the plant from Frank. She saw how pale his face had grown. ECOMICLIOO KS, EO)