The Argosy — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

Adonais, Q.C. th and Gabrielle, swam round Oliver Adonais. He sat down suddenly, and raising his hand with a quick motion, covered his eyes. ‘¢ Are you joking, Vaughan ?” he asked, quietly. “Joking !—not I. Gabrielle!’’ and he turned to her almost fiercely, ‘‘ say whether I am joking or not; speak the truth.” “Tt is the truth, Mr. Adonais,’ she answered, without moving or looking towards him: and her voice was quite hard in its forced calmness. Adonais rose. There was a dazed look in his eyes; his brows were knit together as those of a man in bodily agony ; but he held up his head, and his voice was calm; harder than Gabrielle’s had been. “Yes, I congratulate you, Vaughan, of course. It was strange that I never heard of this before, wasn’t it ?” Without another word, bowing low to the girl’s still figure, Mr. Adonais passed out of the room, out at the doorway—for ever; and so on down the sun-parched thoroughfare. A mighty steamer on the open sea. It had left the docks that morning, threading its way through the maze of masts of the misty river. Down it, always down it; past the grey walls of Tilbury Fort, onwards till the banks widened, and grew indistinct and the lonely light-ships were left in the distance. And now here it was, heaving and tossing grandly upon the open sea. A gentleman paced the deck with long swinging strides. The sailors hurried to and fro ; the captain was up on the bridge; and the other passengers loitered about, some on the seats, and some at the sides of the vessel. But this man paced on alone, his head in the air, and his brows knit well together—for he was thinking. “Who is he, I wonder?” whispered one voice to another, as he paused for a moment beside the head of the cabin stairs. “Hush! don’t you know? A sad thing—very; and strange. No one understands it. Of course something must have happened ; or he never would spoil his life in this way. A rising man he was, sir, the man of the future; but he threw it all up to go a voyage to the Anti- podes : and here he is, you see.” “But who is he ?”’ whispered the other again, a little impatiently. “Bless me—don’t you know?” He clutched his hat, for the wind had caught it in a gust, and would have whirled itaway. “I thought everybody knew him—Adonais, Q.C.” And so a life was spoiled, and a heart was lost, and a heart was won—and the truest heart in England was broken. And all for a pair of gloves! CONNIE IOOKS (E(©) m