The Argosy — page 378: what you’re looking at

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

Extracts from the Diary of a Young Lady. 357 pity for them. Why had just these two been singled out for such a life as this? Why had the boy been so tempted? Why had the girl married him? But here my heart smote me. Did I indeed wish not to have become his wife. No, I did not. I wished very earnestly to die, but I never wished I had not married Marcus. When [I laid down my happiness, I took up the duties of a wife, and with the duties I found I had taken up the love also. Still there was one thing, only one I never did. I never voluntarily caressed. I never kissed him or laid my head on his kind shoulders, or threw my arms round him as of old. Something kept me from this. I know not what—for I never shrank from him. I loved his kind tone and tender kisses. I do not know whether he noticed this. If he did perhaps he thought me passive from the languor of ill-health. One day he was turning over the contents of a drawer, long unopened, in the library. He was searching for photographs of himself as a boy, which I had expressed a wish to see ; and to gratify a wish of mine no trouble was too great. He had looked everywhere likely, and, going to this drawer as a forlorn hope, he found them there “Here they are,” he cried ; but the next moment he uttered an ex- clamation which struck my ear as one of horror. I sprang from my chair and ran to look over his shoulder. He held a photograph in his hand, but it was no boy’s face he regarded so intently, the portrait was not his at all. It was a photograph of his murdered uncle, Sir John Gray, and across the picture was a great red stain of blood. I do not know why this sight overwhelmed me; my nerves ought to have been hardened by the life I had led ; every hour of every day had Drought to them trials surely worse than this. Yet this alone was more than I could bear; I screamed aloud and then fainted. I should have fallen, but he caught me in his arms. I did not lose conscious- ness entirely, but I could not stand or see. He laid me on the sofa and tenderly brought me back to lfe with restoratives and gentle fanning ; the cool breeze seemed to reach my brain and soothe it. ‘Oh, that blood, that dreadful blood !” I cried. He stared at me wildly, terror in his eyes. Then he said softly: ~ “Be calm, my dearest. I see what you mean. It was not blood; it was red ink. A bottle with a little red ink in it has been spilled on the photographs.’ This was too much; not blood but red ink. Not murder, I suppose, but just a little red ink. I burst out laughing, and that laugh of mine sounded in my own ears as the most horrible sound they had ever heard. I was worse for some days after this incident, but early spring was bringing glory and freshness to the earth; and somehow a little of her sweetness crept even into my heart and revivedit. I rallied. I was able to go out again, and, leaning on my husband’s arm, to stroll through the gardens and see the little leaves and blossoms leap up to welcome the spring. Sometimes I felt only a soft melancholy, CoOnmnicoooks (CO) mn