The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

122 THE EVIL GENIUS. and let us arrange for a speedy meeting. I wish I could ask you to come and see me in my birth-place. It was sold, years since, under instructionsin my father’s will, and was purchased for the use of a community of nuns. We may look at the outside, and we can dono more. Inthe meantime don’t despair of my re- covery; the sea is my old friend, and my trust is in God’s mercy.” These last lines were added in a postscript: ‘‘ Have you heard any more of that poor girl, the daughter of my old friend, Roderick Westerfield—whose sad story would never have been known to me but for you. I feel sure that you have good reasons for not telling me the name of the man who has misled her, or the address at which she may be found. But you may one day be at liberty to break your silence. In that case don’t hesitate to do so because there may happen to be obstacles in my way. No difficuities discourage me when my end in view is the saving of a soul in peril.” Randal returned to his desk to write to the captain. He had only got as far as the first sentences, when the servant returned with the lawyer’s promised message. Mr. Sarrazin’s news was communicated in these cheering terms: ‘*T am a firmer believer in luck than ever. If we only make haste—and won’t I make haste!--we may get the divorce, as I calculate, in three weeks’ time.” CHAPTER XXX. THE LORD PRESIDENT. Mrs. LINLEY’S application for a divorce was heard in the first division of the Court of Session at Edinburgh, the lord president being the judge. To the disappointment of the large audience assembled, no defense was attempted on the part of the husband—a wise decision, seeing that the evidence of the wife and her witnesses was beyond dispute. But one exciting incident occurred toward the close of the proceedings. Sudden illness made Mrs. Linley’s removal necessary, at the moment of all others most interesting to herself—the moment before the judge’s decision was an- nounced. But, as the event proved, the poor lady’s withdrawal was the most fortunate circumstance that could have occurred in her own interests. After condemning the husband’s conduct with unsparing severity, the lord-president surprised most of the per- son's present by speaking of the wife in these terms: ‘‘Grievously as Mrs. Linley has been injured, the evidence shows that she was herself by no means free from blame. She has been guilty, to say the least of it, of acts of indiscretion. When the criminal attachment which had grown up between Mr. Herbert Linley and Miss Westerfield had been confessed to her, she appears to have most unreasonably overrated whatever merit there might have been in their resistance to the final temptation. She was indeed so impulsively ready to forgive ECOMMICOOOKS (C©) im