The Argosy — page 352: what you’re looking at

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

The White Witch. 323 to his face. No, not Mary, but a lady a few years older, strikingly like her in spite of some want of skill in the artist, and dressed in the fashion of twenty years ago. He was still looking intently at it when Lady Davenant came in. The portrait was not hers. She was a tall, thin woman, with a hard, cold face which repelled him, and a stiff, ungracious manner. She had known his name apparently beforehand, and was for some reason evidently prejudiced against him. He found it rather diffi- cult to open the subject which had brought him in face of the unsympathetic glare of her steely eyes. ‘‘T have been referred to you, madam,” he said, “‘by Mr. Thorn, of Great St. Helen’s, in the hope that you would be kind enough to help me to discover the present address of a young lady who is now a close connection of my family, and in whom I believe you also take an interest—Miss Dixon.” : Her face grew more rigid as she sat like a statue, still and stately, by the side of the smouldering fire, and opposite Godfrey. “The interest I take in Miss Dixon, or rather Miss Davenant,” she began, icily, ‘‘ has been so effectually quenched by her own conduct, that nothing but the sense of my duty to her father, my late husband, who was providentially spared the knowledge of the wicked course of life which she wilfully entered upon, and has since pursued, sustains it in me at all. Mr. Thorn knows this.” Godfrey’s head swam. This hard woman’s husband Mary’s father! Had Mrs. Mayne, his step-mother, been divorced from her first husband ? “T_T beg your pardon, madam,” cried Godfrey, bewildered : ‘‘ do I understand you to say that your husband was the late Dr. Dixon ?” Lady Davenant drew her head up. ‘‘ My husband, sir, was Sir Jacob Davenant.” * Ah, yes, of course,” assented Godfrey, in dire confusion of thought. ‘ Miss Dixon has—has always shown a strong sense of your kindness to her.” “Indeed !” retorted Lady Davenant, as she shot a keen glance at him from her cold grey eyes. ‘Then the troubles she has brought upon herself have altered her strangely. Even now that she comes back fawning upon me, and entreating me to take her home again and bear the burden of the shame she has brought upon herself, she does not dwell much on her gratitude for my past kindness.” He listened, holding his breath. Who was she, this woman of flint? How could she refuse to shelter a girl in her sorrow and peril? Lady Davenant continued: ‘‘ When, some time ago, I heard, having felt it my duty to keep myself informed as to Mary’s move- ments, that she was living in France, away from the persons with whom she had linked herself, I put an advertisement into the Zymes, not knowing the exact address, offering to receive her again under my protection. But she wrote to decline my offer, alleging that the EONNIE OOO KS (E(0)