The Argosy — page 375: what you’re looking at

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

354 Extracts from the Diary of a Young Lady. was that miserable woman, Lucy Gray, Marcus Gray’s wife. I must go before my husband returned. One thing I would do. I would take my little Bible with me, and by so doing my husband would know why I had left him, and would make no search for me. My recovery proceeded but slowly while such dreadful thoughts rent my heart in twain. I schooled myself with a desperate force, that I might gain strength enough in time, and I felt myself becom- ing cold and hard and old under this forced calm. I did not read one of my husband’s letters, and I did not write to him. JI could not do either. But one day a telegram came to say he was anxious at my silence, that his business might keep him a week longer, but he must have a telegram to say all was well, or he should return at once. I asked Doctor Winsley to wire that all was well, and then to write giving a favourable report of my illness, and saying that I should soon be all right again, but that I could not write at present. ‘“ And that must be followed by daily bulletins ; he will be so anxious,” I said, quietly. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I woke from a dream of being married to Marcus. We stood before the altar dressed in black, in a vast, gloomy cathedral, the light dim as the struggling dawn of a winter’s day. It was cold; tears started from my eyes; my bride- groom stood beside me a pale, melancholy ghost. I woke suddenly, with these words sounding in my ears, as if spoken aloud: “Those whom God hath joined together, let no .man put asunder.” I lay absorbed in the sound. Then words came from my heart as if in answer to the voice that spoke so loudly : ‘‘ For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sick- ness and in health, till death us do part. Amen.” Floods of tears fell from my eyes, that had not wept a single tear since the fatal hour when I found the Bible. I wept as if I had never wept before. I knew my doom, and my spirit rose to it in humble prayer. I was his wife. I must stay with him. I must help. I must console. I must endure. I must live for this duty, if I could. I must not die till God saw fit to take me. I must endure. As my body grew strong my mind strengthened also, and by the time Sir Marcus returned home I had schooled myself into a won- derful calm. I found myself clasped in his arms, held passionately against his breast, my face covered by his kisses. I did not shrink or falter. Ah, my love, my poor guilty love, your touch, your kiss did not repel me. How often had I pictured to myself this moment, but had I ever seen it like the reality? Had I ever thought of my- self as yielding to that embrace and returning that kiss? With a sorrowful pride, my heart acknowledged that it still loved, and vowed itself yet anew to its duty. CONNICLOOOKS.E©)