The Face of Rosenfeld — page 251: what you’re looking at

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

244. ss THE FACE OF ROSENFEL,. der and horror. This woman led two lives. In one life she was the model of respectability and virtue. In the other she had no scruples and no decency. The mystery .1s how she was able so long to hide the fact that she played this dual role “from the keen and suspicious glance of society. ‘The reason can alone be found in her extraordinary ability and cun- ning. ‘This woman was a paragon of deceit and duplic- ity. ‘There can no longer be any doubt that poor For- sythe was deceived, even as to her purity. Miss Steven- son is her own daughter, and the people who brought her up told one truth when they said that they had al- ways been paid large sums for the child’s board, though the fact that this money was paid Leander Dye, or that he even knew them before the necessities of the conspi- racy brought these precious people together, is entirely improbable. Mrs. Forsythe alone knew of her brother’s connection with Leander Dye. She alone knew that Mr. Dye had been with him on the day of his disappearance. Shealone suspected the truth. ‘he use which she made of these suspicions has already been placed before you. After years of secret hate, and fear, and bitterness, when the wretched Dy-, in a moment of frenzy, at the thought of his own degradation, dared to strike the blow that rid him forever .: his unscrupulous master, he fell at once, by virtue of this very deed, under the tyranny of a still sterner hand. From being a tool in the grasp of the man, he became a tool in the grasp of the woman; and the woman was less lenient than the man. In a private room on the second floor of the Forsythe mansion, on Livingston Street, on the thirtieth day of January ‘last, the unfortunate child, who for the previ- ous two weeks had been known to the household as Mrs: Forsythe’s niece, took ether and submitted to be oper- ated upon with a cold steel chisel and a red-hot curling- iron. Mr. Dye, who assisted. at that operation, was prostrated by the effects for days. No more need be said for the fortitude and strength of purpose of the woman who played the dual role of saint and sinner.