The Argosy — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

THE ARGOSY. FULY, 1884. Sahe WHITE WITCH. re Ges oes OU SS ig WE Oye | ages 8 ge. & GODFREY AND MARY. Se WILLIAM HUNT, followed by his groom, rode quickly away from the gates of Croxham Abbey ; leaving Godfrey Mayne, who had attended the baronet from the door, a prey to about the most uneasy excitement that had ever stirred his nature. To Godfrey the proofs appeared now to be indisputable that his father’s wife had posi- tively some urgent reason for keeping out of the sight of Sir William. Coupling this with the dark deed of the past connected with Sir William’s dead son, and with Sir William's mysterious accusations, Godfrey asked himself whether it was indeed possible that there could be aught in it. He recalled what Mary Dixon had confided to him —that her mother wished not to meet the baronet, because she did not behave well to him in early days; had, in fact, jilted him for another lover—Dr. Dixon, presumably. Such was the impression, not a very clear one, left on Godfrey’s mind, for Mary had not been minutely explicit : she could not well be so when telling tales of her mother. With his whole heart Godfrey hoped it was only this’ latter trifle: pretty girls jilt men every day: he revered his unsus- picious, single-minded father ; and to imagine, only as a fable, that he had been lured into marrying a woman to whom danger or difficulty attached, through past antecedents, was to Godfrey utterly intolerable. Not of Mary did he, or could he, believe ill. She had become too dear to him for that. If her mother had got into dangerous trouble in the past, Mary, as her loving and beloved daughter, might have been drawn into it so far as to try to shield her; to be striving to shield her still, was but natural; but as to any worse stigma, the young man made up his mind that none such could attach to Mary. The girl herself might need to be shielded now from undue worry and suspicion, and that should be his own business. He had told her that he would protect her as anxiously as he would a cherished and only sister. He meant to do it, no matter at what cost to himself; and VOL, XXXVIII. B GOmMmichdoo cs) (€(0)