A Fair Fraud — page 286: what you’re looking at

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

A Fair Fraud 275 had taken the slight, trembling figure into his arms, ‘My own Hester! My darling!’ and his voice was a little choked and rough, as he held her against his heart with a passion of delight. ‘Oh, Kenneth, are you quite, quite sure that you want me—still?’ she faltered, trying, not very hard or very successfully, to draw back out of his encircling arms. ‘ Quite, quite sure, dearest!’ ‘But have you considered? Have you thought? Can you forgive the way we deceived you? Can you forget the life we led, and what my poor parents were? Even now that they are dead, is it possible that the stain of their misdeeds can be washed out ; that your people, your friends, will believe in a woman whose past has been so black as mine has been ?’ ‘What does it matter about my friends or my people, Hester? It is I who am going to marry you, not they!’ ‘But your father and mother ?’ she persisted. ‘A man marries to please himself, not his father and mother, love.’ ‘But I am not good, Ken; everything about me has been bad and horrible. I am not fit to be your wife.’ ‘Foolish child! you are the one and only GORMGIOO oO G' Q)