The Argosy — page 275: what you’re looking at

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

250 The White Witch. | had succeeded in awaking him. ‘There was a young man in the carriage with me, a doctor he called himself, and he gave me a draught.” ‘Why should he drug you, sir?” asked the guard, believing that young Mr. Mayne’s mind was wandering. ‘Well, I suppose he meant it for a sleeping-draught,” amended Godfrey : ‘‘ he saw I was faint and ill.” They brought him a glass of water in the station room, and Godfrey, after drinking it, tried to collect his thoughts. Suddenly he remembered Mary, and staggered to his feet. ‘‘T must go out,” he said. ‘There was a young lady some- where in the train; I must find her. I have to take her to my aunt’s.” But even in the midst of speaking, he fell back from weakness and looked up at them bewildered, his mind once more losing itself. He then got up again, and said he must go. ‘The young lady must be gone too,” said the porter, winking at the guard, supposing that she existed but in imagination. ‘See, sir,” as they supported him out to the platform, ‘‘all the passengers have cleared out.” They put him into a hansom, Godfrey being just able to give the address: Lady Ann Northstone’s, Eaton Place. And the porter, at the suggestion of the guard was about to get in after him to see him safely to his destination, when a policeman, who had been looking on from the first, quietly pushed the man aside and took his place. “T shall go with him myself,” said he. ‘‘It is as much like a case of drugging as any I ever saw. Drive gently,” he added to the driver. The cab was going slowly out of the station, when another hansom came out, and rattled past it. By the light of the gas-lamps, God- frey saw Mary Dixon seated in it; he bent forward, and in her sad eyes, as they met his, there lay a great terror. By her side, holding his hand on her shoulder, with what was evidently a firm grasp, sat the young doctor who had travelled up with Godfrey. And whether it might have been something in the detaining grasp which struck on Godfrey’s senses, or whether the side-face of the man, seen by Godfrey for the first time, betrayed him, he could not have told; but enlightenment flashed on his mind. That young, fair man, whose face had been familiar, and yet not familiar, was no other than the detective, Cattermole. Godfrey sprang up from his seat with a great cry: but the police: man held him down. ‘ (juite off his head,” thought the officer. All kinds of questions were whirling through Godfrey’s brain. That the present aspect of the young and slim man was his natural aspect, could admit of no doubt. He must have come to Croxham in disguise; padding his back and shoulders, and wearing iron- comicbooks.co!