The Argosy — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

106 Lady Valera. threw it out of the window,.and locked me in the room ‘till my tantrums were over.’ I saw him go past the window, and I knew he was going to her.” “ Poor child !” sighed the Vicar, seeing before him not the stately, remorse-stricken woman, but the beautiful, wild, passionate, forlorn child of the story. “T called to him. JI beat my hands sore on the door. Someone came at last and let me out, and just as I was I would have rushed bare-headed through the streets in search of him, but that the person, whoever it was, held my hands and stopped me. Then I saw it was my father. ‘Never mind what he said to me. I grow sick with rage and shame to this day when I think of it. He took me away that hour and put me in the convent of the Sacred Heart, where my Aunt was. abbess ; and then—went back to Dublin and shot Jack dead in the Phoenix Park at sunrise next morning.” “Dead!” the Vicar ejaculated, with a long-drawn breath of relief, despite his sympathy. She turned sharply on him. ‘“ Was he?” she queried, a world of meaning in her dark, doubt- ful gaze. ‘“‘I think they hed to me. I think he let them leave him for dead to be nd of me. I think—I know ”—she glanced over her shoulder suspiciously as she spoke and drew nearer the Vicar. ‘‘I saw his name tn despatches long after. He was alive, and my saintly hus- band knew it, but would not give me up to him. Liars all!” she cried, with fierce sudden passion, “and amongst them all I am Lost —Lost—Lost !” There was silence while Eustace stood gravely pondering on this. new and serious feature of the case, and Lady Valeria sat with quiver- ing lips and knit brow, afraid to trust her voice again. The flame of anger died out as rapidly as it had flamed up, however, and she went on in weary sullenness. ‘‘Do you want to hear about the convent : how they kept me there eating my heart out for months waiting for news that never came: and then sent me away—dreading scandal you understand ? My boy was born at Biddy Magrath’s—-I mean Katty’s mother and my foster-mother, and died—so they told me. I was too ill to know. My father was like a madman at the thoughts of his own folly, for Jack was in his grave—or they all thought so then, for certain, and the wrong he had done me could never be righted. I must go back to the convent again; it was the only place for me now. I was too iil and wretched to care what became of me, and let them do as they pleased.” ‘You went back to the convent as a postulant ?” he inquired. She nodded. “They would have it so; but when I got well and strong, and felt the hatefulness of it all, I ran away, about a year after. It was the best way. They never would have let me go. I was out marketing CORMICMOOOKS EOL