The Argosy — page 352: what you’re looking at

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

Mrs. Raven’s Temptation. 329 CHAPTER XLI. A CLUE TRACED HOME. THERE was only one person who passed out over the threshold of Ravenscourt that afternoon. It was Nurse Hannah. She went straight to the railway station. Getting there just before the train, which would bring any travellers from Coltburn, arrived. The Reverend Mr. Connell was leaning from his carriage window as the train drew up. He expected he should see his nephew Frank. But instead of Frank Raven, he saw a face with which he had been familiar enough in Coltburn streets—the quiet, contented face of a working-woman, yet in early middle-age. He never saw her before in the nurse’s cloak and close bonnet. ‘““Mrs. Cran?” he questioned, as he went towards her. She curtsied, and answered in a significant tone: ‘‘Nurse Hannah, at your ser- vice, sir.” ‘““T suppose your husband knows that you have written to me?” ‘You may be sure of that, sir. And he knows a great deal more. He’s not far off now, sir,” she observed, looking neither to the right nor to the left. The Minister glanced furtively around. Everybody had already left the station, except one shabby man, with a shade over his left eye, who was resting a pack upon his knee, and busily re-arranging its paltry contents. Could that possibly be the trim and active Cran? Nurse Hannah gave a merry little laugh. “And so you’ve found out something at last?” asked Mr. Connell, as he walked on by her side. “I found out on Christmas Eve who the woman-ghost is,” she answered, ‘‘I suspected her all along, though Cran wouldn’t be sure.” It was clear that in his own house, even the astute Cran had to bear the humiliating feminine “I told you so.” ‘And ———” prompted the Minister. ‘And it’s only Miss Evelyn Agate,” said the nurse, quietly. Mr. Connell almost stood still. “I haven’t found out the man who walks with her yet,” she went on; ‘* but that can’t take long now. She goes out in her green dress- ing-gown. And it isn’t through the Court doors that she goes at that hour, you may be sure, sir. But in the corridor leading to the con- servatory, there is a low window that is never hasped.” ‘““Are you sure it is she? May not the disguise deceive you?” “Sir,” said the woman, ‘‘I watched. I saw the light-dressed figure first, and then all of a sudden, young miss in her black silk evening- dress. I went back over the path she’d come, and there I picked up a green dressing-gown. She'd slipped it off. She went back to look EORnnicloooks (GO