The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 211: what you’re looking at

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

200 THE EVIL GENIUS. ‘*My dear child, if you have any regard for yourself, if you have any regard for me, don’t ask me to give Bennydeck this very letter! You won’t hear reason? You still insist on it?” “T do.” ‘‘If Kitty ever behaves to you, Catherine, as you have behaved to me, you will have richly deserved it. Oh, if you were only a child again, I’d beat it out of you—I would!” With that outburst of temper, she took the letter to Benny- deck. In less than a minute she returned, a tamed woman. ‘‘He frightens me,” she said. ‘Is he angry?” ‘‘ No—and that’s the worst of it. When men are angry, I am never afraid of them. He’s quiet, too quiet. Wesaid, ‘ l’m wait- ing for Mr. Herbert Linley; where is he? I said, ‘He has left the hotel.’ He said, ‘What does that mean? I handed the let- ter to him. ‘ Perhaps this will explain,’ I said. He looked at the address, and at once recognized your handwriting. ‘ Why does she write to me when we are both in the same house? Why doesn’t she speak to me?’ I pointed to the letter. He wouldn’t look at it; he looked straight at me. ‘There’s some mystery here,’ he said: ‘I’m a plain man, I don’t like mysteries. Mr. Linley had something to say to me, when the message inter- rupted him. Who sent the message? Do you know? If there is a woman living, Catherine, who would have told the truth, in such a position as mine was at that moment, I should like to have her photograph. I said I didn’t know; and I saw he sus- pected me of deceiving him. Those kind eyes of his—you wouldn’t believe it of them!—looked me through and through. ‘I won’t detain you anv longer,’ he said. [I’m not easily daunted, as you know—the relief it was to me to get away from him is not to be told in words. What do you think I heard when I| got into the passage? I heard him turn the key of the door. He's locked in, my dear, he’s locked in! We are too near him here. Come up-stairs.” Catherine refused. ‘‘Iought to be near him,” she said, hope- fully, ‘‘ he may wish to see me.” Her mother reminded her that the waiting-room was a public room, and might be wanted. She proposed going into the gar- den, and telling the servant who usually attended on them where they might be found. Catherine yielded. Mrs. Presty’s excitement found its over- flow in talking perpetually. Her daughter had nothing to say, and cared nothing where they went; all outward manifestation of life in her seemed to be suspended at that terrible time of ex- pectation. They wandered here and there, in the quietest part of the grounds. Half an hour passed—and no message was re- ceived. The hotel clock struck the hour—and still nothing hap- pened. ‘¢T can walk no longer,” Catherine said. She dropped on one of the garden chairs, holding by her mother’s hand. ‘‘ Go to him, for God’s sake!” she entreated. ‘‘ I can endure it no longer.” Mrs. Presty—even bold Mrs, Presty—was afraid to face him ECONNICLOOKS .eO®