The Argosy — page 337: what you’re looking at

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

316 The Missing Rudvtes. the death of that young couple—one wonders how Mr. Corder could have borne up under his sorrows !” ** And his loneliness,” added Richard Milton. ‘‘ He has not a rela- tive left in the world. Mr. Earle’s coming must be quite a godsend to him.” ‘But you mustn’t suppose that he means to make a relative of me,” Godwin said, quickly. ‘‘ He has befriended me, it’s true; but he doesn’t know yet how I shallturn out. All that he has done—and it’s a great deal—is to give me a clerk’s place in Mr. Milton’s office, and an opportunity of learning the wine business. I don’t despair of getting on, but I shan’t be worth much, I’m afraid, for years to come. Learning a business is slow work, you see.” “Not so slow as you may imagine, perhaps,” returned Richard, in his cheery way. ‘‘It depends a good deal upon your grappling power, I fancy. But we are forgetting, Mr. Earle, that we haven’t yet thanked you for looking after our charge. It was owing mainly to you, I think, that Miss Ward came to us in safety.” For an instant, Godwin was slightly bewildered. This was indeed a new view of the case, and he began to wonder what kind of story Beatrice could possibly have told. But the girl came to his aid with quiet promptitude. “T have been telling Mrs. Milton,” she said, looking at him stead- ily, “how I suddenly fainted on my way to the Silverdean railway- station, and you picked me up, and saw me safely through the journey. I wasn’t quite myself that morning, perhaps—there had been many things to bear, and I daresay I was unnerved by all my leavetakings.” “Of course you were,” chirped Harriet. ‘‘ You were preoccupied and depressed, and you set off on a long, early walk without eating a sood breakfast. It was very silly not to have ordered a fly.” Still Iam glad I did not ordera fly,” said Beatrice, in a peculiarly quiet tone ; ‘and I daresay it will be a long while before I faint again —TI feel very strong now.” So Godwin knew she had kept his secret, and would keep it tillthe end of her days. She could be silent as well as brave, and the bond between them was strengthened by this wise reserve of hers. When a man first discovers that one woman is a broken reed, he always begins to doubt the stability of the entire sex. Having found that Alma Lindrick’s faith was of a kind that would not bear leaning upon, he had half resolved never to rest again on such an uncertain stay as a girl’s heart. But, as those steady blue eyes met his, he said to himself that, after all, there were some women on the earth worth living for. He was no enthusiast, with romantic visions of feminine angels, but an everyday man of the present age, with plenty of knowledge of the world, and of the worst part of the world, and experience had told him that, even with the most perfect of life-com- panions, there must now and then be a want of unison, an inevitable ECONNIELOOKS.€) m