The Argosy — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

Lady Valeria. 9 She disengaged herself gently and glided like a shadow away across the room and back to within the circle of lamplight almost imme- diately. “IT came here to find you. I knew we should meet, and I brought this with me to give you. Do not open this letter. It is for my son Oliver ; you are to take it to him when you hear I am dead. ‘This is for you. Wear it when you give the letter and always after. It will be yours by right.” She opened a worn little red-leather case, and Edric glanced at a handsome signet ring inside for a second. ‘‘ Do not look at it again till you put it on your finger for good. ‘There ; take them and bid me farewell.” Edric looked at the letter and case with strong repugnance, and made no movement to accept them. ‘‘ May I not leave them here ? Can you give them to your son to keep till—till—the proper time > I would rather not have charge of them.” ‘No, no, no,” she repeated, more and more imperatively. ‘‘ You must give the letter yourself—yourse/f, mind. No messenger will do. And it must be given unopened, mind that. Oliver is an honest, upright man, and will do his duty. I can trust him. MHe will under- stand how much I have spared him. I was not always willing to do so. There were times when I felt I must speak or go mad. I ad speak. once. You will find inside this the name of someone who knows my story. Someone that I once felt could have helped me. Go to him and ask him what I told him once, and tell him I have obeyed him. I have hated him—lI could not bear to see him again ever since, but I have obeyed him. ‘Silence. Silence to the end,” he said. ‘‘Go to him, but promise me, not till I am dead.” ‘“] promise, though indeed the more you say to me the more Iam sure you are making some terrible mistake. Il keep your ring and your letter, and I’ll ask no questions; that’s what I have got to do, isn’t it P” Edric was beginning to feel the inevitable reaction from the long- strained excitement of the scene, the necessity for saying something brutally out-spoken, if need be, to put an end to this bewildering: entanglement of half-confidences, but he was spared the necessity. There was a sound of carriage-wheels outside, a ring at the bell, voices in the hall. She held up her hand for him to listen. “That is my son Oliver’s voice. Come, you shall meet him, that you may know him and that he may know you.” She beckoned him to the door of the room and’ flung it open, standing side by side with Edric, in the full light of the hall, her hand laid on his arm. Lady Charles Brant was outside, standing on the lowest step of the staircase, her head tossed back indignantly, with an air of being called to account for something, and resenting it. A gentleman in travelling garb was speaking frowningly to her, but he stopped abruptly as the door opened, and turned round curiously. CoOnniclbooks (CO)