The Argosy — page 361: what you’re looking at

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

332 The White Witch. stopped, sprung out of it without another word or look at her, and into a hansom, then crawling by. Mrs. Penteith had not found breath to utter even his name. A fear flashed into her that he was not accountable for his actions. The illness he had gone through, and the mental distress, might have been too much for his brain. She went home, and took old Dunning into her troubled counsels. That worthy woman gave it as her opinion that Master Godfrey’s. brain had been so frivolous at the best of times as not to be worth much: he might steady down perhaps when he came to a sober age ;. forty, or so; not before, she reckoned. Godfrey did not return to dinner, and Mrs. Penteith spent the evening in the deepest anxiety, starting up at every sound of wheels, listening, peering out into the darkness, until it had died away. The household went to bed at the usual hour ; Dunning sat up with her mistress, the two waiting with sinking hearts for a sound that one of them at least began to think she should never hear again. At last, at twelve o’clock, a hansom stopped at the door. Dunning. flew out with a torrent of acid reproaches ready, which died away on her lips as she confronted Godfrey, white as a corpse, almost as. quiet. ‘Turn up the gas,” said he, as he took out his purse. Then, turning to the cabman: ‘Let me see, I took you at half-past seven. Here’s a sovereign for you.” Dunning closed the door and offered to take from him a parcel he was carrying ; meek, subdued almost to terror, was she, by the cold, mechanical, stony gravity of his look and manner. ‘T’ll take it, thank-you. I am sorry to have kept you up. There’s: a light in my room, I suppose. Good-night.” He passed her, went upstairs, and met his aunt standing on the landing of the first floor, He gave her a kiss with lips the touch of which made her shiver, said coldly he was sorry she had sat up :. turned from her, and went up to his room, leaving her stunned into silence as the maid had been. Dunning crept up the stairs to her mistress, and the two women looked at each other with white, frightened faces. As they heard his key turn in the lock they both started, with the same thought: Was he going to injure himself ?>— was he insane? “Ton’t come up yet,” ohinpeitd Mrs. Penteith. ‘Give me the candle.” She crept upstairs and knocked at her nephew’s door. “Who Is it?” “Tt is I, Godfrey. May I speak to you—for one moment?” He opened the door at once, but at sight of his ghastly face, with eyes which seemed to her feverish fancy to be already glazing in death, she was struck dumb again. He waited, quite silently, indifferently, for her to speak. She glanced behind him into the room. The gas was turned high and both candles were burning. Eomicbooks.¢co