A Fair Fraud — page 216: what you’re looking at

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

A Fair Fraud 205 ‘No, I said nothing,’ she muttered, con- fusedly, but nobody was listening to her. At this moment Hester recovered conscious- ness, and sat up on her sofa. She cast a look of bewildered terror around her, and in the next moment she remembered everything. ‘Kenneth ?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘Hush, hush!’ and Marion laid her fingers on her lips. ‘Kenneth is quite safe,’ she said in a low voice. But Hester seemed scarcely to understand her. ‘He swore he would shoot him!’ she said incoherently; ‘but he had given mei till to-morrow to get the money. He _ must have forgotten. Ah! he zs safe/’ she ex- claimed suddenly, looking beyond Marion’s head. The hall door had opened, and Kenneth Drury entered the house. As he came in, Hester fell back upon the sofa cushions once more, sobbing hysterically. It was impossible to conceal her agitation from the others, and as to Captain Drury, from the moment he entered he seemed to become aware of those hysterical sobs pro- ceeding from the sofa in the corner, and his face grew set and cold as iron at the sight. ‘It is her lover—the man for whoin she asked me for money,’ he said to himself, for CCOLLVUC JOO (Si CO)