The Argosy — page 357: what you’re looking at

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334 The White Witch. Mrs. Mayne’s illness. Was it the thunder that upset your nerves, also?” ‘‘T don’t wish to hear any more about it—or to talk of it, father,” said Godfrey. ‘‘ I was not ill; and my going to the window to get a breath of fresh air had nothing to do with either nerves or thunder. You speak as if I had made a scene. The room was simply too hot; and I have not yet sat through enough heavy dinners in stuffy old houses to be suffocated without minding it.” ‘Well, I don’t know how you can call that big dining-room at Goule ‘stuffy,’” returned his father, mildly. “It is twice as big as ours at the Abbey. When we have a dinner-party there you don’t jump up suddenly as if you had been shot, and stagger to the window and put your head out, without answering for ever so long, when you are asked what is the matter. Old Masterton got quite nervous, and asked me if you were in the habit of fainting away. A pleasant thing for me, to be suspected of having a son who faints!” “Very!” interjected Godfrey, satirically. “ Of course I was mortified; but I didn’t know what to make of you myself. At first I feared you must surely have had too much wine, but I never knew you to take too much before, and I thought it was curious that you should begin at Sir William’s. I saw Under- wood grimace, absolutely grimace, when he tried the port; and as for the sherry—well, I believe Hunt gets it by advertisement, I do indeed. I know I shall have a bilious attack to-morrow.” ‘Well, well, father, let it be. I do not suppose I shall give rise to fears again that I am fainting.” And perhaps the assurance appeased Mr. Mayne. He put himself back in his corner, and fell comfortably asleep. But there was no sleep, or chance of it, for Godfrey. His mind was simply distracted. One minute calling himself all sorts of wicked names for daring to attach any such suspicion, even for an instaut, to Mary Dixon and her mother; the next, recounting over and over again all the points mentioned by Sir William. How could he dare to imagine suchill of her? Her beautiful face, with its sad brown eyes, as it had appeared to him when she reproached him for his suspicions—which were light compared with this !—rose up to shame him for his doubts. Doubts! Yes, thank heaven they were only doubts. He would speak to her to-morrow—would it were possible that he could speak to-night !—for, come what would of it, these dreadful doubts must be set at rest. Now he said to himself that he had no right whatever to have raised such doubts ; but he saw that, looking back upon past events, they had raised themselves up naturally, as a result of those events, In a degree they had been chased out of his mind by Mary’s grace and charm, and also by common sense, but they came back now with a terribly new meaning suggested by Sir William’s words. Was it remorse for having encouraged a mere lad to gamble with Eomichbooks.co m