The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 185: what you’re looking at

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

174 THE EVIL GENIUS. My welcome is offered to penitents and sufferers of another kind—who have fallen from positions in life in which the sense of honor has been cultivated; whose despair is associated with remembrances which [ may so encourage, with the New Testa- ment to help me, as to lead them back to the religious influences under which their purer and happier lives may have been passed. Here and there I meet with disappointments. But I persist in my system of trusting them as freely asif they were my own children; and for the most part, they justify my confidence in them. On the day—if it ever comes—when I find discipline seieoght I shall suffer my disappointment and close my oors.”’ a s your house open,” Catherine asked, ‘‘ to men and women alike ?” He was eager to speak with her on a subject more interesting to him even than his home. Answering her question in this frame of mind, his thoughts wandered; he drew lines absently with his walking-stick on the soft earth under the trees. ‘‘The means at my disposal,” he said, ‘‘ are limited. I have been obliged to choose between the men and the women.” ‘* And you have chosen women ?” “Yes.” “Why?” ‘* Because a lost woman is a more friendless creature than a lost man.” ‘*Do they come to you, or do you look for them ?” ‘They mostly come to me. There is one young woman, however, now waiting to see me, whom I have been looking for I am deeply interested in her.” ‘* Ts it her beauty that interests you ?” ‘‘T have not seen her since she was a child. She is the daugh- ter of an old friend of mine, who died many years ago.” ‘¢ And with that claim on you, you keep her waiting?” Ves: He let his stick drop on the ground, and looked at Catherine; but he offered no explanation of his strange conduct. She was a little disappointed. ‘‘ You have been some time away from your home,” she said, still searching for his reasons. ‘‘ When do you go back ?” ‘“T go back,” he answered, ‘‘when I know whether I may thank God for being the happiest man living.” They were both silent. CHAPTER XLIV. THINK OF CONSEQUENCES. CATHERINE listened to the fall of water in the basin of the fount- ain. She was conscious of a faint hope—a hope unworthy of her —that Kitty might get weary of the gold-fishes, and might inter- rupt them. Nosuch thing happened; no stranger appeared on the path which wound through the garden. She was alone with him. The influences of the still and fragrant summer evening were influences which breathed of love. EORMICLOOOKS,eO im