The Argosy — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

Lady Valeria. 105 Her lips seemed to breathe inaudibly. Both sat with attention strained to the uttermost. ‘There was no sound in all the great echoing vault of the church, nor in the narrow bounds of the vestry, and yet by some certain momentary arousing of that sixth sense to which no man has given a name, which is not hearing, seeing, or feeling, but a sort of combination of all three, each had felt in that mstant’s pause that they were not alone. He rose, carried the lamp to the door, and threw its light around once or twice. ‘The echo from some noise outside, I suppose,” he said, return- ang and closing the door after him. She had risen too, and looked fearfully around the small space about her. ‘‘ What does it matter,” she said, at last, “‘ who hears my mame? Iam Lady Valeria Meynell, and my husband was Oliver Meynell—the great, wise, wealthy, and philanthropic Oliver Meynell. Ah! you have heard of him, and of me—of ail my good deeds, and of the children I have brought up to follow in his footsteps.” And she laughed a little cynical laugh. ‘‘ He was a good mantoo. He reclaimed me, and made me what Iam. I was afraid of him, you see, and dare not be anything but what he bade me. We were happy together; but it is not less the truth than when I married him I had another husband and a living child.” She seemed to force the words from her lips as it were loudly, and with a sort of bravado ; then her voice fell, and her face grew white and scared as she went on rapidly. ‘Jack never was my husband, they would have told you; and they took my little child from me at its birth, and swore to me it was @ead ; but I knew better.” She paused a moment. Eustace was silent and attentive. “7 never knew what brought Jack to Glenara—my home,” she con- tinued. ‘ He was the first gentleman I had ever seen, except my father, and I thought him a prince, and ran after him like a little dog. He was spending a month’s leave in the mountains, sketching and fishing, and I used to go off with him, roaming the glens the summer days tong, without word or thought of harm. When the time came for him to go, I just kissed Aunt Kitty, and ran over the hill to the Magraths, where a strange priest married us, and off we went to Dublin together. fZe to mean me harm—my Jack! Never! It was fine fun at first, going about and seeing sights with him, dressed in all the beautiful gowns he bought me; but it didn’t last. Jack was handsome and rich, and would be a baronet some day, and there were plenty to tell him how he had thrown himself away in marrying me. Then I hated the grand ladies he knew, who would laugh at me even while they spoke so sweetly to ‘“‘ La Belle Sauvage,” as I heard one call me. And, in truth, no better than a savage was I when I heard her. Jack joked me about it when I told him. I think he had been drinking, or he never would have spoken as he did. I caught up a knife to give him his answer, but he twisted it out of my hand, and COMIC OOO SS (CO)