The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

74 THE EVIL GENIUS. ‘‘ No.” ‘‘Hear it—in your own interest. Will you permit her te leave the house, never to return again? While she is still inno- 99 cent His wife eyed him with a look of unutterable contempt. He submitted to it, but not in silence. ‘¢ A man doesn’t lie, Catherine, who makes such a confession aslam making now. Miss Westerfield offers the one atone- ment in her power, while she is still innocent of having wronged you—except in thought.” ‘Ts that all?” Mrs. Linley asked. ‘¢Tt rests with you,” he replied, ‘‘ to say if there is any other sacrifice of herself which will be more acceptable to you.” ‘¢Let me understand first what the sacrifice means. Does she make any conditions?” ‘¢She has positively forbidden me to make conditions,” ‘+ And goes out into the world, helpless and friendless ?” “Yes.” Even under the terrible trial that wrung her, the nobility of the woman’s nature spoke in her next words. ‘¢Give me time to think of what you have said,” she pleaded. ‘¢T have led a happy life; I am not used to suffer as I ain suffer- ing now.” In the minute that followed, her changing color re- vealed a struggle with herself. ‘‘ Miss Westerfield is innocent of having wronged me, except in thought,” Mrs. Linley resumed, ‘‘She might have deceived me—she has not deceived me. Iowe it to her to remember that. She shall go, but not helpless and not friendless.” Her husband forgot the restraints he had imposed on himself, ‘‘Ts there another woman in the world like you!” he ex- claimed. ‘‘Many other women,” she answered, firmly. ‘* A vulgar termagant, feeling a sense of injury, finds relief in an out- burst of jealousy and a furious quarrel. A woman in my po- sition, who respects herself, restrains herself. I try to remem- ber what I owe to others as well as what they owe to me.” She approached the writing-table, and took up a pen. Feeling his position acutely, Linley had abstained from again declaring admiration of her generosity. Until he had deserved to be forgiven, he had forfeited the right to express an opinion on her conduct. She misinterpreted his silence. As she under- stood it, he appreciated an act of self-sacrifice on Miss Wester: field’s side—but he had no word of encouragement for an act of self-sacrifice on his wife’s side. She threw down the pen, with the first outbreak of anger that had escaped her yet. ‘“You have spoken for the governess,” she said to him. “I haven’t heard yet, sir, what you have to say for yourself. Is it you who have tempted her? You know how gratefully she feels toward you—have you perverted her gratitude, and led her blind- fold to love? Cruel, cruel, cruel! Defend yourself, if you can.’ He made no reply. Gomicdooks (c©)