The Argosy — page 354: what you’re looking at

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

- The White Witch. 325 reduced her, she comes to me branded with a terrible secret, and expects me to ——”’ ‘‘ What is the secret?” impulsively interrupted Godfrey. Lady Davenant regarded him with her clear, cold eyes. “It is. not my secret,” she answered,.“‘and I must decline to tell you. Yes, she would fain come back to the shelter of my home now, when she finds others closed to her.” _ © And you will receive her, Lady Davenant !” said Godfrey, wistfully. ** And expose my home to visits from the police—as I believe she has already exposed yours!” retorted Lady Davenant. ‘ No.” ** Oh, but surely, surely you will! If she bein danger! If she has no other refuge !” | Lady Davenant’s tightened lips expressed her sense of the liberty he was taking. “I think you will allow thatI am the best judge of my conduct in this matter, Mr. Godfrey Mayne. Were you acquainted with all the circumstances of the case, you would scarcely accuse me of want of generosity—not to speak of justice. Mary Davenant’s sense of my kindness, of which you spoke, was not, I ‘ daresay, deep enough to lead her to mention that I gave up my comfortable home in England in order that I might take her to Italy for the cultivation of her voice, and for other masters. It was in her own interest that I objected to her picking up chance acquaintances there, of whom we knew nothing, what they were, or what they had been. Was it right that a girl of position like Mary, inexperienced as she was beautiful, should plunge into intimacy with anybody that took her fancy ?” ““No ; it was quite wrong,” said Godfrey, warmly. “It was what she did, it was what she would do, in spite of me. And when she made the acquaintance of that specious woman, specious in looks as in manners, Mrs. Lang “ “Mrs. Lang!” echoed Godfrey, who remembered the name well, and where he heard it. Lady Davenant drew in again; evidently displeased at the young man’s familiarity. “Was she the widow of Dr. Lang; a gentleman who practised in Norfolk ?” “She was a person entirely inferior to Miss Davenant, in position and otherwise,” returned Lady Davenant, passing over the question. ** Mary’s voice, as you may be aware, is a very glorious voice, and the question had been mooted during her father’s life-time, whether she should be trained for making use of it in public. Sir Jacob was against it, most decisively so; I was also; but Charles Thorn, who is himself music-mad and who had been Sir Jacob’s long-attached friend, and possessed great influence over him, never ceased to urge it. The question was, I thought, entirely set at rest before Sir Jacob’s death, that it was not to be: still, such a voice as that demands the best of cultivation as its own right, and I took Mary Gomicbooks (E(@) m