The Argosy — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

The White Wrtch. 105 could but feel now if she was ten minutes out of his sight, he wandered into the hall, and half-way up the stairs again. ‘There he heard Mrs. Mayne’s door shut, and saw Mary leaving her mother's room. She caught sight of Godfrey, and beckoned him up to her. ‘Can you amuse yourself for the rest of the evening, Mr. Godfrey ? I am so tired, I want to go to my room already,” said she with a new kindness, a new gentleness in look and manner which intoxicated him. “‘T can frolic and gambol about by myself till doomsday, if it will save you fatigue,” said he. He was kneeling with one knee on the topmost stair at her feet, and lounging against the banisters. ‘Yes, you are always kind. I know that—and—and good-night.” She gave him her hand, and would have withdrawn it quickly, and hurried away, but it was only the second time she had given him encouragement enough to kiss it, and Godfrey was in the mood to make the most of his chance. He drew it into both his and, burying as much of his face as he could in it, pressed his lips to the little pink palm. ** What makes you so kind to me to-night?” he asked suddenly, with a new fear in his eyes. | And she began to tremble and to try to draw her hand away. Huis tone changed. “Well, never mind why. I am thankful for it. And you won't talk any more about ‘selfish infatuations,’ will you ?” ** Not so long as you remember that you are engaged, and that I am engaged, and that you are only my brother.” Godfrey knew that was an arrangement that never answered ; but he knew better than to say so. He instantly sealed the proffered relationship with another kiss on her wrist, and this time his fair hair brushed the flower at her bosom. Drawing her hand away, she left him. She had never treated him like that before, for a true instinct told him that her sweetness to-night was no artifice to blind him, but the result of real feeling: he almost fancied that he was loved. He walked to his own room, delirious with happiness. But the delirium did not last long. The suspicion which had flashed upon him, even while she spoke, came back to him now: this might be a last relenting impulse of kindness before she left the Abbey—if indeed she did leave it. Godfrey knew not what to think. There appeared to be some imminent cause why she should leave it, and with Mr. Cattermole. Mr. Cattermole had spoken to him of marrying her for her protection, as it seemed ; but his manner to the girl herself gave forth no token of tenderness for her, or of love ; and Godfrey felt almost disposed to doubt whether that had not been a mere device on the detective’s part spoken on the spur of the moment to mislead or anger Godfrey, or to make him acquiesce quietly in her departure. He could not rest. He was anxious for her protection, as he Gomichboo (E@)