The Argosy — page 350: what you’re looking at

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

Mrs. Raven’s Temptation. 327 something fell at her feet with a loud crack, and was broken. It was the red intaglio ring, and the stone had come loose from its setting. And the black figure picked up the hollowed gold frame, and the metal melted in her fingers and ran down her garment. And the stone lay on the floor. And he knew it was left there for him. He woke slowly this time, with his heart thumping heavily in his side. There was Budd’s voice speaking outside the door, again. And this time its tones were a little querulous. ‘The lunch bell has been a-ringing ever so long, sir,” said Budd, “‘and Miss Evelyn has sent me up at last, sir, tosee if anything is the matter.” ‘All right, all right, coming ina minute!” cried Frank, thinking to himself: ‘So much for my tragic vision, whose component parts are evidently a lunch bell, a memory, and Budd’s knock. Dear me, it is high time I began to feel strong again! If I’m not better before night, I’ll speak to Dr. Wragge.” He went downstairs. Lunch was set, as it often was, not in the big dining-room, but in a little ante-chamber, furnished only by a small square table, some black Italian chairs, a thick Turkey carpet, and a few faded oil paintings. The luncheon was always an informal meal, for which nobody was expected to be punctual. Evelyn’s urgency in the present instance was only-explained by the fact that Mrs. Sims, out of consideration for her young master’s recent indisposition, had sent up for him a basin of soup, whose savoury odour reached him as he approached the door of the room, in whose archway stood Evelyn, with an expression of countenance half-worried, half-scared, and wholly restless and unhappy. “Oh, I am sorry if I have kept you waiting,” cried Frank. “I never heard the bell—or rather I heard it and made it up into a dream, for I had fallen asleep.” “You have not kept me waiting,” she answered, in a fretful tone. ‘I have had my lunch long ago, and have been in and out of the room several times, but I knew that soup was prepared specially for you.” “T’m a spoiled baby,” said Frank, sitting down, and sipping the soup. But either its flavour did not come up to its savour, or his appetite was still unreliable, for he only took two or three spoonfuls, and then began to dawdle. ‘Dear me!” he cried, looking at the floor beside him; ‘“ some- body has come in here with very dirty feet—or what can this mess be? It cannot be footprints,” he added, looking towards the door, “‘for there are none in that direction. ‘The housemaid must have shaken her dust-pan, or Budd has dropped something from the scuttle.” “Tt is only light dust,” said Evelyn; “I will clear it away in a moment.” And she seized the hearth-broom and a newspaper, and proceeded to make good her word, in spite of Frank’s remonstrances., ) CONNICOOOKS. EO