The Argosy — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

The White Witch. II she added in a bewildered manner, “and perhaps you won’t believe me, because I have told you other things that you did not believe. But though I seem to have given you different versions of the same story, I have never told you a_real falsehood since—since that first evening down by the churchyard wall. And—and you were so kind to me then, that—that I was ashamed, bitterly ashamed, of having done so. Good-night.”’ * Before I go,” said Godfrey, holding her hand and noticing her still nervous manner, ‘‘ you had better go into your room and make sure that no hobgoblins are there to frighten you. Whatever hap- pens, you may trust me, you know,” changing his tone from the light one he had purposely put on. She went in, and came back with a look of relief, saying it was all safe—as if she Aad feared hobgoblins. Godfrey had opened the big cupboard which stood on the left-hand side of the schoolroom fire- place, and taken from a shelf at the top a box of nails, screws, and curtain-rings. He shut the window by which Dick had entered, and began hammering a long nail into the wood, beside the fastening, with the poker. “You can push back the catch of a window with the blade of a knife, you know,” he observed to Miss Dixon. “I’ve often done it myself when I was a boy, to get at the apples in the store-room. But you can’t if there’s a nail in. So now you can sleep quietly without fear of invasion from that idiotic Dick. Though the fellow came, I believe, in faithfulness.” She held out both hands impulsively at the schoolroom door. ‘I shall never forget your kindness this evening, as long as I live.” He pressed the fingers impulsively to his lips. It seemed to alarm her, and she fell to trembling again. ** No, no, you promised to be—to be only my friend. Remember, I am at your mercy now,” she whispered piteously. “* As my dear sister,” he whispered back. Godfrey could not help feeling hurt by her avoidance of him the next day. Surely she might trust him! What it was, that she had done in the past, he could not imagine; or what she meant by the expression she had used of being “hunted down.” That the crime—if crime there was—was not hers, he felt certain; though she might have been drawn helplessly into its consequences. Was it her mother’s? And of whom was she afraid? Nota single private word did he get with her all day: which did not lessen his own state of suspense and uneasiness. It was the evening of the ball at Colonel Underwood’s. When Mary came down stairs dressed for it, she seemed to Godfrey so daz- zlingly lovely that he hardly dared to look at her. She was in cream satin and tulle, with deep red roses from breast to shoulder, and in the coils of her dark hair. Mrs. Mayne, still enjoying the privileges EONMIE OOO KS (E(@) m