The Argosy — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

42 A Debt of Honour. child, placed her beside her boy. ‘The body of the dead man was carried on a stretcher in front, the soldiers closed in behind, and the cart with its unconscious burden brought up the procession. Mar- gherita Bellamonte only awoke some hours afterwards to fall into raving delirium. ‘The sufferings of the last four years had been gradually wearing her away; the last cruel shock was the finishing blow. After a few days raving and tossing, she, too, was at rest. ‘The child had been lying at death’s door with brain fever, but the doctor had that morning declared that he would recover, though he hinted darkly at possible life-long consequences of that fatal day. ‘When Inchkeith had finished his story, I suddenly found myself lying on the floor, with him forcing wine or something between my teeth. But this was no time for me to give way. I dared not even think. The horrible thought of the ill which I had wrought un- knowingly lay in the back of my mind like a savage beast waiting for the moment to spring and catch me in its fangs. I went to take up my post by Luigi’s bedside. I have never left him since for more than a few hours. It is nearly seven or eight years now since then. “As I went upstairs I saw a door open and a darkened room. Some mysterious attraction drew my reluctant feet across the threshold to a bed, draped in white and covered with flowers, which stood in one corner. Still impelled by that irresistible impulse, I drew near, and looked at a face which I dreaded to see again. ‘There I stood—the involuntary murderer—and looked at my victim. Remorse, despair and pity were all for the moment hushed. I was only conscious of envy, and longing to share the still repose to which that worn and tortured spirit had attained. Her beauty had never faded in all those years of perpetual anxiety and hardship; it had only become more and more spiritual in proportion as she grew worn and wasted. She lay now so quiet at last, after life’s fitful fever. Do you remember how delicate and fine her features were? ‘They were still more sharply chiselled after these four years. ‘The long black lashes rested on her cheeks ; her dark crisp hair, waving low on the forehead, was crowned with the drooping, faded wreath her husband had made for her in the last hour of his life. I don’t know how long I stood there, but at last Inchkeith came and led me away and shut the door. ‘‘ As soon as Luigi was well enough to move I took him to England, and Inchkeith left us to go to America. Bellamonte’s aunt was dead, and I, in any case, should have taken charge of him. It was long before the boy grew comparatively strong in body; his memory and reasoning powers never came back, and never will. As you see him now, so he has been ever since, and so he will remain to the end. He remembers nothing of that day except what he calls a black cloud ; all that went before, all recollection of his father and mother, has completely gone. But though he has no idea of the meaning of CORNICE OOOKS (E)