The Argosy — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

. Lady Grace. . 3 **T knew how good you were, how considerate, how honourable, and it gave me courage to speak to yourself, to show you my unfor- tunate position, and to ask you to be generous, and let the refusal to carry out the marriage, come from you. Oh, Sir Everard,” she added, bursting into tears, “‘I do like and esteem you very much ; and it nearly breaks my heart to have to say this.” “You must forgive me, if I repeat that I do not understand you,” he said in a low, kind tone, ‘‘ and your last words less than all. You ‘like and esteem me,’ but you donotloveme? I am quite content to take the esteem and the lhking, Mary; to trust that the love will follow.” “It never will,” she almost vehemently answered, lifting her eyes to his for a moment in her eagerness. “Jt cannot do so.” Another pause: her face was bent again, and she had turned crimson to the roots of her hair. A light dawned upon the baronet. “You love another !” “Oh, forgive me,” she whispered. ‘It was not willingly done: it seems to have come on without my having been awareof it. He did not know it, either—until last night when you came. At least—at least—he had never spoken of it.” “You have betrayed yourself; I suspect unwittingly. You speak of Mr. Baumgarten !” She had indeed betrayed herself, and certainly not intentionally. It did not tend to reassure her. | “Why did you accept me ?” asked Sir Everard. “Why, indeed!” she murmured. ‘ But I did not know that I was doing wrong. I liked you very much, I admired and respected you; you were so different, so superior to the frivolous men we mostly meet. It is true I did not love you, and even then I knew that I liked—only liked, mind—Charles Baumgarten ; but I thought it would all come right in the future. I was acting in a species of dream or bewilderment, which was the effect your offer had upon me. I had taken a wrong view of your frequent visits to us—you see Iam telling you all—and that alone would have kept me from caring for you in a different way, had there been no other impediment.” ‘What wrong view had you taken up ?” inquired Sir Everard. She hesitated for a moment, and then spoke ina lowtone. “I fancied you came for the sake of Gertrude Baumgarten.” “Gertrude Baumgarten!” he repeated in a curious intonation. “‘ Gertrude would not have cared for me.” “Gertrude would—as I truly believe now.” “Nonsense, Mary! Gertrude Baumgarten was wrapt in that Italian prince—who had more money than brains.” Mary shook her head. ‘‘ She did not care for him; and when he asked her to be his wife she refused, and felt surprise, I think, at his proposal, After it was all over—I mean when I had accepted you and we were away, and on our return home again, an idea came over m¢ comicoooKks (©)