The Argosy — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

The White Witch. 87 he would return for them, and when he saw his step-mother coming out of the telegraph-office he slipped into it: one of the girls there had been a Croxham school-girl. He spoke to her. ‘Mrs. Mayne has just sent off a telegram, but thinks she has left out a word. Just let me see the form a minute.” ‘‘T am afraid you can’t see it now, sir.” *‘Oh, nonsense. You are not going to be so strict with me.” The girl gave him the form and he mastered its contents at a glance. “ Thank you; it is all right, after all,” said he carelessly: and he left the office to rejoin his step-mother, who was now waiting for him at the bookstall. ‘Where have you been, Godfrey ? ” ‘Looking for you in the telegraph-office. Wonder how I managed to miss you ?” He hardly felt repaid for the trouble he had taken in tracking out this little mystery; for the telegram, which had brought him into Cheston in the stuffy brougham, was addressed to Miss Dixon at Dinan, and ran thus: “Do not start until you hear again from me.” This was interesting, in that it awoke speculation as to the reason why it was worth while to telegraph at all, but it threw no light upon Mrs, Mayne’s motives for wishing to defer or avoid altogether her daughter’s visit. He put out a question on this subject on their way home. ‘When is Miss Dixon coming to Croxham? MHave you and my father settled it yet?” ** Nothing is settled yet,” she answered rather quickly. ‘‘I should not wonder at Mary’s refusing to come at all.” “Can’t you manage it? You know how kind my father would be to her; and a girl is nowhere so safe as with her mother. It would be for her good: though I know you think a parent ought to make any effort for her child’s sake, even to doing wrong.” Mrs. Mayne started palpably. ‘‘I will try,” she said. ‘‘But Mary is so dreadfully reserved, and has been used to lead so quiet a life.” “Good gracious! you couldn’t have anything much quieter than the Abbey or the life in it,” said he, energetically. ‘Tell her that she may fancy herself a nun here: that she shall have the room which is built upon the exact spot where an erring brother was bricked up in the wall five centuries ago; and that I’ll find out the secret passages which are supposed to exist, leading from the Abbey right under the river and into Cheston, so that she can withdraw herself quietly and unostentatiously from our midst- whenever she finds the Abbey too noisy for her nerves.” They were nearing home when Mr. Wilding’s gig met them, the same young woman seated in it with him who had looked so curiously at Mrs. Mayne in the morning at the Abbey entrance gate. Godfrey Gomicboo CS (E(©) m