A Fair Fraud — page 257: what you’re looking at

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

246 A Fair Fraud Whilst appreciating to the full his many excellent qualities which commanded her esteem, her liking, her sisterly affection, even yet she perceived clearly that there was that in him—or lacking in him—which made him not at all the husband for herself—even, she added, if there had been nobody else. But there was somebody else. And therein probably lay all the difference. _ For a good many slow, dragging weeks nothing happened at all to break the mono- tony of the quiet life. Kenneth Drury had gone abroad on long leave. He had given up his hunting, and had gone to the Mediterranean on a friend’s yacht, with the ostensible object of shooting quail- and snipe on the coast of Albania. There were no ladies on board that yacht, and Marion felt quite satisfied concerning her cousin's motives in joining this cruise. He had gone, no doubt, to kill time as well as birds, and, man-like, had arranged to do so as pleasantly as possible to himself during the six months of probation which Hester had required of him. Marian had no anxieties concerning Kenneth’s constancy. Meanwhile, in her character of faithful friend, Marion was fighting Hester’s battles for her with the old people. She did not have very much success certainly, for with GORMGIOO oO G' Q)