The Argosy — page 322: what you’re looking at

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

Sabrina. | 303 He looked ruefully after her; the enemy had fled, but the victor felt vanquished. ‘What shall I do?” said he. ‘I did not mean to hurt her.” ‘¢ She behaved very badly to you—but —— ** But what ? ” ‘“‘T think she cares for you; I am sure she has felt your absence all these days.” I knew that I was treading on cieaions ground ; meddling, in fact. Sabrina had not made a confidante we me; I was “only guessing by signs and tokens, and they might be aaeisape As for him, I had only seen his looks. Added to this, I had a pretty shrewd guess as to where Sabrina was; for the farmer’s wife was entertaining some gossips in the kitchen; it was too wet to go out, and we had only two rooms. Consequently she must be in our bedroom, and the par- tition was so thin that anything above a whisper in the one room could | not possibly be unheard in the other. After a silence, during which I had begun devoutly to wish that I had not interfered, Miles looked up, his countenance all aglow. ‘The fumes of the new wine of love had evidently reached his brain. I hastened to administer a draught of the cold water of uncertainty. ‘But I am not sure that I am right—lI really do not know—she has not been strong lately.” His face fell. ‘And you, Miles ?” I said. “IT love her as I can never love again,” he cried passionately ; “but I am afraid.” His silence after this held one at least of his listeners in tension. What was it? had he a wife already, and one of whom he was ashamed? Had he done some wrong in the past? What was it P— for I saw that he had something to disclose or confess. I was quite ready to listen. “Took at this,” said he, opening a parcel and displaying a small picture in the lamplight. It was a half-length of an exquisitely beautiful girl, just passing from bud to flower. She was dressed in Eastern fashion, with a profusion of gauze about her, and the usual gold coins on her black hair and slender neck. The large eyes flooded the face with that sweetness, melting into melancholy, only to be seen in an Oriental countenance. No one could have looked on the original without yearning, no man without love of some sort. Miles took up another rather larger canvas and showed it me. The same girl wrapped in soft drapery, that mingled with the flow of the Nile. The afternoon sun shone through a mesh of palm-trees, the ‘sun of a land where he is lord of every tint and odour. I looked at him. ‘‘ Miles,” I said, ‘‘ what does this mean? How dare you come here to disturb her peace—you are married ?” ‘No, no,” he cried, ‘not so bad as that.” “Where is she?” pointing to the picture. COnniclooolxs (C(O)