The Argosy — page 106: what you’re looking at

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

The Mystery of Allan Grale. QI “Tt is all Lettice’s fault that I showed her the manuscript so soon,” put in Charles, playfully. ‘“‘She said men were so mean that they would not allow women to be generous, would not offer themselves to them till they could imagine it was the women’s interest to take them. What could I do, sir, after that ? ” ‘‘ Everything has been Eve’s fault from the beginning,” cried Lettice, laughing. ‘‘ And where is Agnes, papa?” ‘Gone to bed, I think,” answered the Doctor. ‘‘She wished me good night. And you had better go also, Lettice, and tell her your news ; and then I[ expect neither of you will close your eyes till day- break.” Lettice found that her sister had really gone to bed. She had even put out the candle. Somehow Lettice did not care to lght it again. By merely drawing the curtain a little she could let in a flood of moonlight. Lettice told her news with her head buried on her sister’s shoulder. Agnes drew herself just a little away, and said quietly : ‘*] knew it would come, sooner or later, dear.” ‘Then she put her arms round Lettice, and kissed her tenderly, and they remained for a while in silence. ‘What are you thinking about, dear?” asked Lettice very softly “JT was thinking of Maria Vivian,” answered Agnes in the same low tone. ‘“Why ! so was I!” whispered Lettice. And so it ever is. The cross of patient suffering—the sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty—is the world-fact which draws all hearts and dominates all life. © We lay its symbol on the bier of our dead ; we make it on the brow of innocent infancy ; we rear it above our marriage altars. Dr. Palmer, who never went to bed very much betimes lest he should be called out of it again, sat on alone, thinking of the news he had heard and of the future of his daughter ; and Charles Carr was at his open window above, gazing at the stars, after the fashion of a romantic lover, when steps on the garden path proclaimed the advent of a night visitor. “Bother!” said the Doctor; for be well knew what that meant. **No bed at all for me now, I expect.” : But the Doctor was wrong. Bed there would be for him, though not just yet. The parlour-maid opened the door, and told her master that James, from Moorland House, was asking to see him. ‘* Why, who can be ill there?” cried the Doctor to himself, as he went into the hall. ‘‘Is it you, James? What’s the matter?” James explained that his mistress was ill. Not to say downright ul, the man added, but depressed and weak, and she had just had a fit of hysterics, which frightened them. Her maid, Pettham, thought it must be all through the sleepless nights she got now; and they had CONnnicloolks (C(O)