The Argosy — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

Christobel. I4I ‘This letter is written’as a kind of expiation for my coming to your house under false pretences, and consequently I will conceal nothing. Miss Millicent brought me to Hillyer Hall for a purpose which I only divined after I got there: it was to make me acquainted with Mr. Sherlock. She had a wild plan, born of the purpose that had marred her life, of inducing Azm eventually to hold out a helping hand to her brother, my father, who was constantly impressing upon her by letter that his ruin and disgrace were imminent. “We neither of us knew, on arriving, that my father was Sir Edward Meredyth’s guest, for he wrote to me very irregularly, and sometimes not for two or three weeks together. “I suffered deeply at being introduced to you under a false name, but, alas! I had never borne any other, and I do not think that you would have cared to acknowledge me as your niece. Moreover, I had been vanquished by Miss Millicent’s entreaties. She had a vehement intensity of purpose, which I now believe had something of insanity in it; and she was so good to me—to me, whom few had cared for. As regards Clarence Dare, you know that he came as an emissary to my father from a former associate in New York. ‘The latter had a great hold over my father, and could have ruined him at any time— did really ruin him at the last. I had been slightly acquainted with Dare, but that happened to be just before my departure from America, and at a time when my father was temporarily absent. I consequently, only spoke the truth at the inquest when saying that } had never seen them together before the fatal Sunday when Dare met his death. “TI left them as I have already stated at the old Quarry, for I had perceived Mrs. Chisholm hovering about, and I had no wish to be discovered with them by her. As to all that happened afterwards, I must repeat what my father told me. Clarence Dare’s death appears to have been purely the result of an accident. ‘The news which he brought was very, very grave, and necessitated my father’s immediate return to London. He did not know at what hour or in what way his enemy might strike him, and he shrank from the idea of exposure overtaking him while under Sir Edward’s roof. Moreover, he wished to escape to Sweden and there to await events. He had barely time enough to catch the afternoon express, which started from the station at which Dare had descended. Just as he was hurrying away, the latter called out to him that he would walk on to the nearest town and there pass the night (for my father and he had exchanged some angry words, and neither cared to be with the other) only, he added, he must be lent some money, for he had lost his purse. “My father took out two or three sovereigns and threw them to him. They fell into the grass, and Dare went down on his knees to search for them. ‘The ground, as you will remember, was found broken; pre- sumably it slipped, and the unfortunite man was carried to the bottom of the pit. CONnniclooolks (CO)