The Argosy — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

148 Roy’s Good Samaritan. He stepped out into the sunshine as she rose to meet him in momentary embarrassment and some wonder at his visit, the first he had ever paid her. ‘‘VYou are surprised to see me,” he began quickly, in a tone almost of apology, ‘‘ but Iam leaving M—— to-morrow, and want first to restore a certain piece of your property. I should have done so before, but that we have not met since Sunday.” “Indeed! I have not missed anything. Oh! yes, I have though! —my dear little hymn-book! Is it possible you have found that ? I shall be so glad, for 1t was my dear father’s last gift to me.” ‘Then I am lucky, for I have it safe.” “That is good news indeed! You shall have some tea as a reward. ‘Take this chair; I am expecting Lady Lucy presently— like myself, she ignores the Carnival.” ‘Thanks, I cannot stay ; my friend Farquharson is on shore for the gaieties, and is coming to dine with me.” But he still lingered, looking down upon her, a tall figure framed in the doorway. He had taken a desperate resolution, and was summoning courage to carry it out. There was an uncomfortable silence. Mrs. Beaudesert stretched out her hand to the laburnum blossoms overhead and gathered a spray. Perhaps as she did so she felt again the pain of a spring morning long ago, of which the golden blossoms always reminded her. ‘The remembrance of it anyway came over Geoff as he watched her playing with the flowers, and made him miserable. He took the shabby little calf-bound book out of his waistcoat- pocket, opened the fly-leaf where the Uza Levan confronted him in faded ink, and handed it to Mrs. Beaudesert. ‘© So it is this which has stood like a shadow between us all this while! I only found it out yesterday, though I have been haunted again and again by some vague resemblance. Well! it is fair and just that Mrs. Beaudesert should avenge the wrongs of Una Bevan, and I do not complain. I know how you must have hated me for all I made you suffer. I’ve hated myself many a time when the recollection came over me; but the hour of your triumph has come. Against my will you compelled my admiration then; against my will you have compelled my love since.” Geoff spoke stiffly, proudly, as though forced into the confession. Mrs. Beaudesert meantime stood leaning against the balcony, with an expectant look in her grave, grey eyes. ‘Vou are and ever will be the one woman in ail the world for me,” Geoff went on in his blunt, simple way. “In telling you so, I make what amends I can, and offer you all that a man can do to take or to leave—myself and my life’s devotion. Revenge the past if you will!” A burning blush had risen to Mrs. Beaudesert’s white brow, and for a moment her eyes fell before Geoffrey’s, while she still plucked CORNIELIOOKS m