The Argosy — page 333: what you’re looking at

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

314 Mr. Fermyn’s Racquet. Just at that moment there was a sound of feet coming along the passage, and, with a terrified start, she began to try to do up the strap again. Then, realising the hopelessness of getting it fastened in time, she went flying up the stairs, with the racquet still in her hand. The stairs were of dark polished oak, and her soft pink dress made a faint swish as it swept over them. Upon the second landing she paused and listened. ‘The delicate colour had come into her face again with the rapid flight, and there was a glimmer of amusement in her hand- some eyes as she looked down, in a half-ashamed way, at the racquet. “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo,” rang out eight times from a clock in some hidden recess far below ; and when the sound had died away, there came a faint creak and a deep silence—so deep that it was ominous. She took one step down again, hesitated for a moment just underneath a rose-coloured lamp, and then, turning once more, fled like a panic-stricken deer, and locked herself into a room not far distant. Once inside, she sank down on a chair, and, looking piteously at the racquet, burst into half-hysterical laughter. There was but a faint light in the room, and that was the moonlight. Every- thing was casting its long, unearthly shadow. And as she noted the long, drawn-out shadow of the racquet upon the wall, she began ruminating about the last time she had held this racquet. The last time! yes, that was what she wanted to think about. She wanted to remember nothing about the first time. Douglas Jermyn had been playing with this racquet the first time she had met him ; _a bright, new, gleaming racquet it was then. It had seemed to flash in the sunshine; and she had looked at it, and she had held it. That was the first time. It was impossible to forget ; but she wanted to stifle all recollection of that, and to remember only what came after. Ah! there had been so many pleasant things, that now, to-night, with the racquet in her hand, it was difficult to steel herself into remembering only the pain. But by the odd sensation she was feeling, the bitter consciousness that the wound she had thought half healed was just as open as ever, she knew she must steel herself—and so she began resolutely. She imagined herself standing with Douglas Jermyn once more at the window of a breakfast-room. It was his birthday. He had a tiny heart-shaped, jewel-set locket open in his hand ; and inside the open locket was her own miniature. It was her birthday present to him. Her cheeks burned fiercely in the pale moonlight, as she remembered all that he had said, standing there, with that miniature in his hand. ‘The heart was to be as precious to him as his own heart ; it was to bring him good fortune; and he was to treasure it all his life. She remembered every word as if he had spoken it yesterday. Then she passed on to the following day. How, when her aunt and she were out driving, someone told them that a friend of theirs— and a friend of Mr. Jermyn’s—had been unexpectedly called home to ECORMNICLOOKS eC) m