Darke Darrell, the Boy Detective — page 179: what you’re looking at

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

170 ' DARKE DARRELL. Darke read the letter over and over and over again. It scarcely seemed affectionate enough, yet what right had he © to expect it to be more so? Why did it make him feel so sad to know that she was going to Europe, and to suspect he would never see her again? He put the two letters which he had received from her, together with the ivory-type, into his private desk, and how often he afterward read the for- mer or looked at the handsome face in the latter, we are not prepared to say. Leotine had written that they would remain two or three years in Europe. Instead, they remained ten. The end of those ten years found Darke Darrell very much altered. He was tall, stout, dignified, handsome in features, commanding in form, unexceptionably neat in his attire. He had abandoned the profession of a detective, having ~— amassed considerable money, in no wise at the sacrifice of his conscience and integrity. He had bought a retiring partner’s interest in a wholesale house in Pratt street, and very few remembered or knew that the junior partner of the rich and prosperous firm of Beaumont & Darrell was none other than he who acquired quite a rap aayion as ‘ Dae Darke, the ae Detective of Baltimore.” He moved in most excellent society, and was esteemed by every one who knew him. He was unmarried, and was still living with his mother. Hehadsold the house on Cal- vert street at considerable of an advance, and was living in a more commodious and pretentious structure in the sub- urbs of the city. Darke hurried away from the care and hurry of business to spend a few weeks at Long Branch. While seated upon a veranda of one of the hotels, his at- tention was drawn toa lady who seemed to be the center of attraction. s comicbooks:com