The Argosy — page 319: what you’re looking at

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

298 A Little Maid, an Old Maid and the Major. unfeignedly grateful to her. For an exhibition of feeling always furnished the presumption that she was on the right trail, and possibly about to run her game to earth. ‘You are, perhaps, his sister?” she continued affably. ‘I under- stood the Major to say that he was expecting a sister.” ‘“What nonsense!” said the lady rather irritably. ‘He hasn’t any sister,” and she glanced at Miss Dodson with some contempt. That lady invariably flourished under contempt, and put forth sprouts of cringing. As a necessary concomitant, her new acquaintance rose in her esteem—she no longer had any doubt but that she was a lady. ‘Very likely I am mistaken,” she exclaimed with an obsequious smile. ‘I never gossip or mix myself up with my neighbours’ affairs. What little I do hear I make a point of forgetting ; so how should I know whether the Major had sisters or not ?” The stranger made no reply. She was twitching nervously at a glove which she held in one hand, and seemed absorbed in annoy- ance. “Who cam she be?” Miss Dodson asked herself in an agony of curiosity. The lady had on a wedding ring, so the most likely supposition seemed to be that she was a runaway wife. ‘This pregnant idea made Miss Dodson’s pulses bound. What food for gossip if the conjecture proved true! A scandal in high life— perhaps a divorce suit—and the Major even wickeder than Silcombe thought him! Miss Tippany had flattened her nose against the window-pane of her sitting-room, and the sight of her in this attitude spurred Miss Dodson on to further investigation. ‘Perhaps you could wait,” she suggested blandly. ‘“T shall certainly wait,” was the reply, delivered with rather a harsh laugh. ‘I am not going back without seeing him, that’s certain. And I’m so tired!” She looked it. Her cheeks, indeed, were red and her eyes bright, but both the flush and the brilliancy were hectic. She was thin and fragile-looking to the last degree, and her hands painfully wasted. But she was still young, and there was an air of great refinement and elegance about her. ‘““May I offer you my house for an hour or two?” said Miss Dodson. “ Later, if Major Murdoch has not returned, my brother— Dr. Dodson, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh— could find you a room for the night.” The lady looked at her: hesitated a moment: then accepted. She dismissed the cabman and accompanied Miss Dodson, who had obsequiously seized her bag and was disappointed to find no initials on it, into the house. She was barely seated before a fit of coughing came on, which left her in a condition of exhaustion alarming to behold. Miss Dodson, tairly scared, flew for wine, and had no difficulty in inducing her guest to drink two brimming bumpers. After this she revived a little, and Miss Dodson beheld a prospect of reward. Dexterous COMMIEOOOKS.EO im