The Argosy — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

2) Winifred Power. speak when in the haven of her bedroom. Then indeed was the innocent-looking cover produced and eagerly scrutinised. ‘The post-mark 1s Harwich,” said Florence, ‘Whom can she know there? ” ‘‘And the handwriting is a man’s,” added Mrs. Hatherley. IJV hose can it be? ‘The envelope, however, furnished no fuller i2formation, nor suggestion for further comment. But hatred is imaginative and eloquent ; and the two women con- sequently found so much to say that it was long past midnight before they separated. Flossie’s door having accidentally remained ajar, Mrs. Hatherley passed through it without any noise, for the hour was late. What was it then that made her pause on the threshold, peer cautiously, with bated breath, for a moment, then slip out stealthily, without even a word to her child? ‘Through the darkness of the corridor a light had flashed, the lhght of a lamp held by Gertrude. Very softly and carefully Lady Hatherley had stepped out of her own ‘bedroom door, and now was gliding, white and spectre-like, down the ‘broad, silent and shadow-wrapt staircase. Not less quietly, not less ghost-like, did Mrs. Hatherley follow her. With a beating heart, however, for might she not at any moment be -discovered ? It really wasa perilous undertaking, for the staircase -had no convenient nooks, or dark turnings, where the pursuer might flatten herself against the wall and be invisible to the eyes of the pursued. It made the fourth side of the wide quadrangle, sur- rounded on the other three with a corridor, into which all the bed- chambers and other rooms of the first floor opened. At a certain point it merged momentarily into a wide landing, and then struck -downwards in one straight broad flight. Gertrude, swift and white as a dove, has reached the landing and flashed, phantom-like, past the tall mirror let into the wall there. Mrs. Hatherley, noiseless as a dream in her shoes of felt, grey in her wraps _as the shade of a friar, has followed, and in her turn been transiently, but more indistinctly, reflected in the glass. The landing creaks beneath her tread ; she cowers breathless ; and Gertrude, her foot on the lowest step, half turns to look. At this moment a door on the ground floor flies open with a crash, and Mrs. Hatherley’s nerves are so excited that she has much ado not to shriek. It was, however, ‘“‘the wind and nothing more,” although it has done her one good turn, for it has blown out the lamp held aloft by Lady Hatherley, and plunged all things in darkness. Gertrude utters a low-toned exclamation of annoyance ; the elder woman stops short, holding her breath and side, fearfu! lest her heart-beats should betray her. Gertrude listens apparently for a moment, then gropes her way along the hall. She has remembered that on the library table are matches, and the library is her destina- tion. She leaves the door open so that the starlight, faintly shining through one or two windows in the corridor above, may guide her a (CEONNIEC OOOKS (EO)