The Argosy for May — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

316 Ionely place in the mountains, near Gmunden, and left her there in the charge of his housekeeper. She pretend- ed to be incensed with him for carrying her off that she would not listen to his protestations; and he left, telling her that he would return to Vienna, get a priest, and marry her by force. ‘hat was the very thing she wanted him to do, as a matter of fact; for she did not dare risk confessing to him who she really was, and she had .been trying by her assumed coldness to spur him to this very point. “But richly have they both had to pay for their follies,” Muriel continued, with a sad shake of her head. “ His air-ship, the only one he had capable of making a distance as far as Gmunden, broke down upon the return journey ; and since his estate is in a wild spot, inaccessible to either telegraph or tele- phone, he was abe to send any word. ‘Then she, believing that he had de- serted her, fell into violent hysterics, last- ing a day and night, and when he did finally get back he found her raving in the delirium of brain-fever. ‘Since that time his condition ia been a pitiable one. He knew that he was shadowed by our detectives, ‘and has lived constantly in fear of being arrested for the crime of her abduction. He has not dared to go to Gmunden. News from there has reached him but slowly; and between fearing for her, and fearing the consequences of his mad act, his life has. been one continual inferno. “Last night he could stand it no longer, however, but risked everything and took the trip and, to his joy at first, he found her conscious. Conscious, and in a more chastened, sweeter humor than he had ever known. “She still refused, though, to receive his vows of love until she had complete- ly uabosomed herself of all the story of her deceptions. And, when he had as- sured her that none of it made any differ- ence to his affection, weeping and, confessing that she too loved him, yet told him that- it could never be, since the doctor had shortly before informed her that she would prob- ably not get well. “She urged him, also, to carry a letter to me, and. although it tore his heart to she fell then to. THE ARGOSY. i leave her, he did so... In it she asked me to come to her, if possible; but, whether I did so or not, to see that he was fully absolved from all blame in connection with her disappearance or death. “I, of course, agreed to comply with her request, and merely stopping to leave a hasty note for papa, hurried back with Captain ‘von Altdorff to the Arsenal. The rest you know.” The conversation between Laszlo and Muriel had been carried on almost in whispers at one side of the car; but now as she finished, and Chegnay glanced somewhat curiously at the figure of their pilot, the thought struck him that they might have screamed at the top of their voices, for all the difference it would have made to him. Entirely oblivious of them, he. was leaning forward over the front of the car, now adjusting a lever, now tighten- ing a belt, his one thought to get the most speed out of his delicate and com- plicated machinery, his eyes only turn- ing from the steady beat of his engines to gaze with strained yearning toward Gmunden. ¢ It was daylight when at last they ar- rived, the peaks all about them tinging with the rosy light of dawn. To the south towered the lofty Dach- stein, with its little glacier and cap of virgin snow, and nearer at hand, toward the left, loomed up the rugged mass of the ‘Traunstein, while the foreground was filled up with the pine-covered Salzburg Alps, through a ridge in which rushed the Traun, foaming in cascade after cas- cade-down to mect the Danube. Upon one of the wildest, most deso- late summits the air-ship settled slowly, and Von Altdorff, only his haggard~eyes showing the anxiety which was gnawing at his heart, assisted his passengers to alight, and Ted them hurriedly over a rocky path through the pine forest back to the house, a mere shooting-box erected many years before. On tiptoe, scarcely knowing what to expect, for the housekeeper was with the invalid, and nobody else about, they fol- lowed him to the sick-chamber, and just as they entered saw the sun break through the eastern window in a flood of golden glory. It shone full upon the perld face CORMICLOOOKS (C (C@