The Argosy — page 211: what you’re looking at

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

ROG EE By ame VE Ree ROGER'S SKELETON. pore Say you can never sleep well in a strange bed. I know I did not sleep well, but very badly, that first night at Lady Bevere’s. It was not the fault of the bed, or of its strangeness; it was Roger’s trouble haunting me. He did not seem to have slept well either, to judge by his looks when I went into his room in the morning. His fair, pleasant face was pale; his lips trembled, the blue eyes had torment in their depths, ‘“‘T have had a bad dream,” he said, in answer to a remark I made. ‘An awful dream. It came to me in my last sleep this morning ; and morning dreams, they say, come true. I’m afraid I have you to thank for it, Johnny.” “Me!” ‘You suggested last night, startling me well-nigh out of my senses by it, that Lizzie might follow me down here. Well, I dreamt she did so. I saw her in the dining-room, haranguing my mother, her red- gold hair streaming over her shoulders and her arms stretched wildly out. Uncle John stood in a corner of the room, looking on.” I felt sorry, and told him so: of course my speaking had prompted the dream. He need not fear. If Lizzie did not know he had come down here, or that his family lived here, or anything about them, she could not follow him. “You see shadows where no shadows are, Roger.” “When a man spoils his life on its threshold, it is all shadow ; past, present, and future.” ‘‘' Things may mend, you know.” “Mend!” he returned: ‘‘how can they mend? They may grow worse ; never mend. My existence is one long torment. Day by day I live in dread of what may come: of her bringing down upon herself some public disgrace and my name with it. No living being, man or woman, can imagine what it is to me; the remorse for my folly, the mortification, the shame. I believe honestly that but for a few things instilled into me at my mother’s knee in childhood, I should have put an end to myself.” ‘Tt is a long lane that has no turning.” ‘‘ Lanes have different outlets : bad as well as good.” ‘“‘] think breakfast must be ready, Roger.” : ‘And I started with prospects so fair!” he wenton. ‘Never a thought or wish in my heart but to fulfil honestly the duties that lay m Eomichooks,. Go