The Argosy — page 291: what you’re looking at

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

272 The Missing Rubtes. ‘At last!” he said, taking her hand and drawing her into the room with quiet gentleness. ‘‘It is good in you to remember your old music-master. He has missed you sadly !” He had placed her in the arm-chair by the window, and stood look- ing down into her face with all his desire to keep her in his gaze. She understood that longing of his at once. Her thought had gone back to that winter evening when she had told him the story of her love. He had made her a promise then ; he was waiting for her to remind him of that promise now. ‘“Mr. Vordenberg,” she said, ‘ you told me last winter to trust you always. You promised to be my friend. I am come here to confide in you and tell you about my sorrow, as I once told you about my happiness.” ‘“T thank Heaven you have come,” he answered quietly. “I have been waiting for this.” Her wistful face lit up at these words. She began her tale at once, speaking in a low, soft voice, and looking straight at her listener, who had seated himself on an opposite chair. She had resolved to keep back nothing; he should know the whole history of her lover’s strange trouble, from beginning to end. ‘ Kver since I have known Godwin Earle,” she said, ‘‘ he has been under a cloud. The shadow ofa suspicion has been resting on him for two years, darkening his life and blighting his hopes. But he is innocent—I need not tell you he is innocent.” Vordenberg’s smile answered her. “He is suspected,” she continued, her face growing paler and paler, ‘‘of stealing a ruby necklace worth three thousand pounds, entrusted to him by his aunt, the Countess Gradizoff.” The dark eyes gazing into hers flashed suddenly—almost fiercely. “The Countess Gradizoff!” Vordenberg repeated in a strangely eager tone. ‘‘ Are you quite sure that she is the aunt of Godwin Karle?” ‘“T am quite sure,” replied Beatrice. ‘She was a Miss Earle, who married Count Gradizoff, and went to Russia with her husband. After his death she returned to England with her daughter, and has been living ever since with her sisters in Fairbridge. The ruby necklace, which has been the cause of all our trouble, was once the property of Count Gliska, an exiled Polish nobleman. It passed into the hands of Count Gradizoff, and was given by him to his wife.” Vordenberg rose suddenly from his seat ; a flush mounted to his ~ pale forehead, and the light in his eyes seemed to grow brighter and brighter. ‘The ruby necklace,” he said, with peculiar quietness, ‘‘ was never given by Count Gradizoff to his wife. The thing that was stolen from her—if stolen it was—had never belonged to Count Gliska.” ‘How do you know this?” asked Beatrice, breathlessly. ‘ Oh, CONnNIEOOOKS (E©)