The Argosy — page 277: what you’re looking at

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

258 Winifred Power. ‘The best thing I can do is to leave it. What I wanted to say was, will you ask Sir John Hatherley for fifty pounds. I don’t want it for myself ; but for 4ev,” and he nodded towards Mariuccia. Winifred stared at him in speechless amazement. Was he mad, to ask for such a sum and in such a tone? He was watching her face quite coolly, and seemed fully to expect an answer. “I could not think of making any such request,” she said at last. ‘And moreover it would be useless.” | ‘‘T would not trouble you,” pursued Ridgeley, quite undisturbed by her refusal, ‘‘but you see my hands,” and she noticed that they lay motionless and paralysed. ‘‘I cannot write myself, and I don’t like to trust anybody else to wzrzfe (he laid a stress on the word) what I now have to say.” ‘You must find some other messenger,” said Winifred. But she spoke gently, for speech had so increased his asthma that it was pain to sit and watch him. ‘Nay, ma’am, you must speak,” he gasped, using the words not imperiously, but because he obviously was too weak to try persuasion. ‘Tell him, please, that I say in the old days he was readier with his money ; and that he knows the cost of refusal.” “That sounds like a threat,” said Winifred, haughtily. “Tt is one,” Ridgeley answered. More reluctant than ever now to undertake any such mission, she rose and turned to the door. ‘The man, past all speech looked at her imploringly, while his face turned of an ashen grey, and his breathing filled the room with a grating sound, like the creaking of some cruel machine. All at once Winifred turned and again ap- proached him, impelled by a new idea. ‘Tell me,” she said, almost vehemently, as though conjuring his answer to find voice. ‘‘When you lived with Sir John Hatherley, was there any member of his family called Martha ? ” He bent his head in assent. “ And,” continued Winifred, beginning to tremble with excitement, “did they work her any wrong?” He made the same sign. She stood looking at him, uncertain what to ask next, and possessed with a sudden scruple at what she had asked already. He raised himself with an effort, and laboriously bringing out each word, as though it were wrung from the grasp of a vice, he whispered: ‘‘ Bring—me—the—money—and—before—I die—I— will—clear—Miss—Freake.” Freake—Martha Freake! So that was the name. With scarcely so much as the ceremony of a nod to Mariuccia, Winifred hurried away, feeling now that though the knowledge she had wanted was hers, she had gained it by unworthy means. What right had she to spy into Sir John’s past? The question presented itself to her for the first time, and she realised at the same moment how completely possessed she had been by the suspicion that had filled her mind for days. She Gomichbooksnheom