The Argosy — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

The Mystery of Allan Grale. 89 then it was peering out of a crowd, now it was young and fair, then old and sweet, now laughing, then sad. But always one face. And when there was a collection of the Bedell pictures, Lily and her husband visited it. And the husband, noticing this ever-present face, cried, “Why, Lily, it is yours !” And the story ended with Lily’s answer. ‘“ I must have haunted him, because after all my father’s kindness, he proved so negligent and ungrateful. Lettice sat there in the fading glory of the summer night. Through the open window, she could hear voices in the room below her, she heard the drawing of the curtains, and knew that the lamp was lit. She heard Agnes’s voice, steadily going on, reading the newspaper to the weary doctor. But she could not go down. ‘To-night she was in harmony with the light dying in the west, and the stars coming slowly out, and the whispering trees in the mystic twilight, rather than with the pretty room, with its genial lamp, and its books, and its work- basket. | Presently there was a rap at the door, and Charles’s voice speaking softly : ‘““Come out into the garden, Lettice.” She went. He awaited her under the ivy-clad porch at the back of the house. He held out his hand, and hers slipped into it. That was a moment by itself in all their lives. ‘* You have read it,” he whispered presently. “Yes,” she said. ‘* And oh, I like 1t—except the end.” “You have altered the end,” he answered softly. And again there was a silence. “Did you notice a slip once—in the names?” he asked, by- and-bye. Yes,” she faltered: ““T noticed it myself, the moment it was written,” said Charles. ‘** But I could not bear to erase—your name. Its coming by accident seemed like a good omen. And that was why I could not show the manuscript to Mr. Grale.” ‘*] never could help wondering why you were so persistent,” Lettice remarked. ‘It did not seem like you. But you showed it to papa.” “That was different,’ said Charles. ‘‘ Besides, I Aad to show it to him.” ‘‘Somebody else must have seen that manuscript,” mused Lettice. “Was it not the name, Mark Bedell, which made so much mischief ?” ‘‘T can never understand that,” quickly answered Charles. ‘* Hither somebody must have had a master-key to my desk; or I may have absently written ‘Mark Bedell’ on some piece of paper—in trying a pen perhaps—and left it about.” ‘“* Did you never leave the manuscript itself about ? ” | “T think not, Lettice. I know I am absent-minded at times, but I hardly think I should have been so stupid as that.” (CO) CoOnnicloolkks