The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 198: what you’re looking at

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

. THE EVIL GENIUS. 187 sides. He was on his way to the hotel when he met with Syd- ney Westerfield. To see a woman in the sorest need of all that kindness and consideration could offer, and to leave her as helpless as he had found her, would have been an act of brutal indifference, ré volting to any man possessed of even ordinary sensibility. The captain had only followed his natural impulses, and had only said and done what, in nearly similar cases, he had said and done on other occasions. Left by himself, he advanced a few steps mechanically on the way by which Sydney had escaped him, and then stopped. Was there any sufficient reason for his following her, and in- truding himself on her notice? She had recovered; she was in possession of his address; she had been referred to a person who could answer for his good intentions; all that it was his duty te do had been done already. He turned back again, in the direc: tion of the hotel. Hesitating once more, he paused half-way along the corridor which led to Catherine’s sitting-room. Voices reached him from persons who had entered the house by the front door. He recognized Mrs. Presty’s loud, confident tones. She was taking leave of friends, and was standing with her back toward him. Bennydeck waited, unobserved, until he saw her enter the sit- ting-room. No such explanation as he was in search of could possibly take place in the presence of Catherine’s mother. He returned to the garden. Mrs. Presty was in high spirits. She had enjoyed the festival; she had taken the lead among the friends who accompanied her to the palace; she had ordered everything, and had paid for nothing, at that worst of all bad public dinnersin England, the dinner which pretends to be French. In a buoyant frame of mind, ready for more enjoyment if she could only find it, what did she see on opening the sitting-room door? To use the ex- pressive language of the stage, Catherine was ‘“ discovered alone,” with her elbows on the table, and her face hidden in her hands—the picture of despair. Mrs. Presty surveyed the spectacle before her with righteous indignation visible in every line of her face. The arrangement which bound her daughter to give Bennydeck his final reply on that day, had been well known to her when she left the hotel in the morning. The conclusion at which she arrived, on return- ing at night, was expressed with Roman brevity and Roman elo- quence in four words: ‘*Oh, the poor captain!’ Catherine suddenly looked up. ‘‘T knew it,” Mrs. Presty continued, with her sternest em- hasis; ‘‘ 1 see what you have done in your face. You have re- used Bennydeck.”’ is God forgive me; I have been wicked enough to accept im.” Hearing this, some mothers might have made apologies; and other mothers might have asked what that penitential repl could possibly mean. Mrs. Presty was no matron of the ordi- COMNICLO© S (E() m