The Argosy — page 367: what you’re looking at

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

344 The White Witch. “T think you are; but never mind that at present. I should really like to know what crime it is I have connived at, or been supposed to connive at. Is it theft?” Apause. “Forgery?” <A pause. ‘“‘ Murder?”’ Godfrey shuddered. He could feel by the tremulous motion of her dress that she was shaking from head to foot. But when she spoke, her voice was low and still. ‘So that was the crime Sir William regaled his company with! Murder !—and a very terrible crime too, Pray whose?” ‘His son’s; young William.” ‘Oh, his son’s! Where did I do it?” Godfrey seized her cold hand in his, and looked at her with a face as white as her own. ‘‘If you have any mercy, do not treat it in that way! Every mocking word you speak cuts me like a knife.” “T am sorry I cannot speak on this subject more pleasantly. I ) At last she was giving way under the strain, staggered, and partly fell against him. He put his arm round her, and for one brief instant her cheek rested nervelessly on his shoulder. The next moment she was standing up again and had put his arm away. “T am not ill, thank you; I am too hardened for that. At least I ought to be, if what you would accuse me of is true ——” ‘Mary, for Heaven's sake, stop! Do you think I am flint? Do you care? Don't you see you are torturing me like ” “AmI? And I meant to be so nice about it! I beg your pardon for seeming so ungrateful. I really don’t know how to apologise for having had the bad taste to be annoyed ——” ‘Silence,’ he interrupted, sternly. ‘‘Do you suppose I for a moment thought you really guilty? Why, if I had, could I have spoken to you about it? Trusting in you as I do ¢% ‘‘Yes : you have shown that trust before, very touchingly.” ‘ Look here: there can be no doubt that your mother showed singular emotion when she heard the name of Sir William Hunt, and that his place was in this neighbourhood; she remained at home this evening on an absurdly slight pretext, and insisted on your remaining with her—for which there was no shadow of excuse. It set me thinking : and when Sir William spoke of—of—the death of his son, and that two ladies were in some way involved in it, mother and daughter, one of them young and beautiful—well, I suppose I must have thought of your mother and you, and I suppose I must have gone a little out of my mind to do so. ‘There’s the whole truth, and I can only beg of you to forgive me.” “What else did Sir William say of the one that was young and beautiful ? ” ‘‘ Nothing,” carelessly replied Godfrey: for, strange to say, the remark that had made more impression on him than aught else—the magnificent voice Sir William had heard—he repressed. m Eomichooks.co