Her Faithful Knight — page 187: what you’re looking at

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

The Blow Falls. 183 He knows quite well I can’t love him, and when he looks at me in that horrible, snake-like way, as if he were going to spring at me, I absolutely hate him! And yet he forces me to marry him for Phyllis’ sake. It is cruel and mean!” But in the morning an apathy which was akin to resig- nation took the place of the night’s excitement. She was to be married from the hotel where Lady Derrick was staying, Darcy’s mother having arrived in Plymouth for the ceremony in the afternoon of the preceding day, and at about one o'clock Dorothy proceeded to the hotel in a cab and made her way upstairs to Lady Derrick’s rooms. Miss Knight was entering into the married state with- out love and with considerable trepidation, but she was a woman, and a very womanly one, and no woman can get married without a little excitement and a natural desire to look her best. Owing to the recent death of Darcy’s father, the cere- mony was to be strictly private, only the Stourton-Chepes, Mr. Wyverley and Mr. Coles having been invited to the church. But in a simply-cut, white serge traveling cos- tume, with fine lace ruffles at the neck and wrists, a little silver embroidery on the vest, and a tiny white bonnet crowning her bright hair, Dorothy, pale, with bright, frightened eyes, looked beautiful enough to justify any infatuation. Lady Derrick was, as Dorothy expected she would be, all tears and effusion. Dorothy would be good to her darling boy, she knew. His devotion to her had been so wonderful and had lasted so long a time— Lady Derrick was clearly surprised at this—but with a poetic nature such as his, unlimited sympathy and tenderness was necessary, and Lady Der- rick hoped her dear Dorothy would be ready to humor and study his peculiar temperament. Eomichbooks (C@)