A Fair Fraud — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

A Fair Fraud 163 much of the shrinking horror he: felt towards her was due to sheer jealousy of that other man to whom he believed she must have sacrificed her good name and her honour, and whom, therefore, she must at one time Certainly have loved, it is very diffieult to say.’ He went straight from her presence into the smoking- room, where, sitting down at the writing- table, he quickly despatched the necessary order to his banker. | But when the letter had been taken away, he still sat on by the table doing nothing, his head resting upon his hand, his eyes fixed miserably and blankly before him. He was gazing into the ashes of his black- ened life, and the pain of i¢ hurt him very badly. His love for Hester had been of rapid growth. He had met her mother for the fi.st time about a year ago, when he had fallen ill at a Scotch hotel on his way from one country house to another. Mrs Lane and her daughter had also been staying at the same hotel, and they also, it seemed, had been on their way to some country visits. Mrs Lane had appeared in his sick-ro.:m like a ministering angel. She had been told by the landlady that he was ill, she said, and she had had a great experience in illness; she was sure the good people of the house knew nothing whatever about sick nursing. Would Captain Drury ‘+ COMIICcooo <S (GO)