The Equinox (Volume I, Number VIII)

HIS SECRET SIN leaves. " I’m getting on splendidly. Mr. Davis thinks I ought to go to Paris and study properly. Do let me." "How can you think of such a thing, Gertrude? A daughter of mine] Study properly ! ΙΙ No indeed ! Alittle sketching is a nice accomplishment for a young lady, but—" His jaw dropped. A thin, graceful pencil sketch it was that he clutched in frenzied fingers; but he could not mistake the subject. ”Wretched girl,” he shouted, " where did you get the— the—the- Damn it all, what d’ye call it P—the—ay! that’s it !—the model for this Vile, filthy, lewd, obscene, lustful thing? Damn it! you‘re as bad as Cousin Jenny! (Cousin Jenny was a blot on the ’scutcheon of the Buggs). You‘re a harlot, miss ! " And then, with an awful change as the truth came home to him: “0 my God! Ο my God! Damn it!” he screamed, “ how did you get the keys of my little safe ?” The girl had frozen colder than the stone, but there was a new light in her eye, and if the curl of a lip could treada worm into the dust, that lip was hers and that worm the author of her being. She had withdrawn as one who comes suddenly upon a toad, and the first flaming of her face had died instantly to deadlier ice. Bugg saw his mistake, his masses of mistakes. There being but one more to make, he made it; and, finding himself in the frying-pan of discovery, leapt into the fire of things irrevocable and not to be forgotten His fat, heavy-jowled, coarse face all twitching, he fell on his knees and clasped his hands together. “ So you found me out? Don’t, don‘t give away your poor old father, Gertie! My little Gertie ! " 57