Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

A SEVERE THREAT. 131 down in dull despair. Dead! . The man she loved, whom she had always loved since their first meeting three years before ; the man who was her husband ; dead all these weary months, while “She had been breaking her heart because she heard no word from him since she had been torn from his side at the little railway station in Scotland. He was dead! And she—what mattered it, after all, what became of her now! A light touch on her shoulder aroused her ; glancing up, she saw that her father had returned to her side. _ **Geraldine,” he said, ‘‘ John Sydney has arrived, and with him a clergyman. All necessary forms have been complied with, and since all is in readiness, you will obey me, and con- sent-to be married quietly ?” She stared vacantly before her, but she had no words to utter. ‘* Geraldine !” The word was like a groan. Her father, haughty Lionel Vernon, was upon his knees now at his daughter’s feet. ‘‘ My child!” he went on, wringing his hands in wild despera- tion, ‘‘ I have told you of a guilty secret in our family. I did not tell you all. I thought to spare you, in mercy. But listen, Geraldine: / am the guilty wretch who has brought disgrace upon our fair name. Sir John Sydney can and will lift the cloud of shame from our escutcheon, and the world need never know the truth if you will only consent to be his wife. He knows how you dislike him, it is true, but I have scrupulously concealed from him your—your foolish fancy for young Ash- leigh ; and believing that, though you do not care for himself, your heart is still free, he will make you Lady Sydney, and save us from a dreadful fate. Geraldine, it lies in your hands. Will you avert disgrace and ruin from the Vernon name? Will you save your unhappy father from a felon’s doom ?” She listened as one in a dream. Outside the open door the great entrance hall shone brilliantly with a brave array of lamps down its long vista. Geraldine’s dull gaze caught a glimpse of the tall, spare figure of an elderly man, with coarse, red face, Comicboo cS (ele) 3