The Argosy — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

Pao ARGOS Y. MARCH, 1884. mae ee WHITE WiTcCcH. CHAPTER VIL A REVELATION. Sadana MAYNE stood in his room, dressing for dinner, greatly bewildered. The conversation he had overheard, half- whispered though it was, between his step-mother and her daughter, had most unpleasantly astonished him, showing him that they held some dangerous secret. He had caught the word “danger,” and therefore believed it to be dangerous. Whatever might be its nature, he determined to find it out. That it concerned the girl, not the mother, he felt certain: and it was his duty to ascertain it. Mary Dixon had been received into their home and into the homes of their friends as irreproachable. ‘That she had committed any grave offence against the rules of society, he did not believe; but she seemed to have offended in some way, and he should like to know how, for his own satisfaction: not to enlighten others, The remembrance of the contemptuous tone in which she had spoken of himself, did not, to do him justice, weigh with him. The matter was too serious for that. Godfrey, with all his bad manners and his ill-temper, was a gentleman, and it would never have occurred to him to do a girl harm because she had insulted him and laughed at him. Those were small grudges, and might be paid back in small. ways, but not in attacks, well or ill-founded, upon herself. When Godfrey reached the drawing-room, only his father and Miss- Dixon were there, speaking together in a low tone by the window. They glanced round as he entered and fell apart—Godfrey fancic *. they had been talking of himself. Mrs. Mayne came in next. She. looked pale and her eyes were red, Dinner passed much as usual. Afterwards, when Mr. Mayne was left alone with his son, he began to reproach him with being “srumpy:” for Godfrey, lost in his own unpleasant thoughts, had, been silent throughout the meal. VOL, XXXVII. M GEOMIGDOOKS (EO)