Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 140: what you’re looking at

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

A SEVERE THREAT. 133 ‘‘Keep away!” she faltered. ‘‘ Don’t dare trouble me now. I bP But her father caught her arm, with a warning gesture. ‘‘Geraldine,” he cried, commandingly, ‘‘you are beside yourself. Come in, Sir John. My daughter is not well, and is nervous and excited. Your unexpected coming has alarmed her somewhat. ” _ But she broke from her father’s detaining grasp, and dart- ing forward, paused before the baronet, her eyes shining with the fires of unquenchable hatred, her breath coming pantingly, her small hands clutched convulsively. ‘‘T will speak,” she panted; ‘‘ father, I demand the right. You shall not prevent my telling this man—this wretch ”— and she ground the word out fiercely between her small, white teeth, ‘‘in what utter contempt I hold him; how thor- oughly I despise and hate him. If I were to see him at this moment down in the dust at my feet, writhing in the pangs from which Z might free him by the lifting of a hand, I would pray that my hand should be stricken powerless forever ere I would lift it for his relief. And now, Sir John Sydney, know- ing my true estimate of your character, Lask you, do you still wish me to be your wife?” Speaking from the fullness of her disgust and aversion, acting as most impulsive, passionate natures would have acted, Ger- aldine Vernon had yet made a grand mistake. Sir John was’ of a tenacious nature. He had fallen desperately in love with the bright, beautiful, audacious girl; the idea had taken pos- session of him that she, with her bewildering beauty and strange fascination, would prove a Lady Sydney of whom he might be proud; and he had determined to win her by fair means or foul. He was, as I have said, remarkably tenacious by nature, and all this opposition on her part but served to strengthen his wild passion. He wasa bad man to the very core of his hard heart. No deed was too dark for him to attempt when aught stood in the way of the gratification of his selfish wishes. Gaz- Eomichooks (ae) =|