Her Faithful Knight — page 315: what you’re looking at

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

Tracked Down. 311 that fatal quarter of an hour in the church at Plymouth last September. Yet all that can’t prevent me from loving you—and I do love you, Aylmer, with all my_heart and soul. Iam dreadfully happy in spite of everything when you are near—no, don’t try to take my hand or [ shall stop—I grow lonely as soon as you are out of the house, . and glad before I see you, knowing that you are coming back. I suppose it would be thought wrong for me to tell you this, as I am supposed to be married to some- one else. But in my heart I am married to you, and I shall wear your ring as long as Iam alive. No! I forbid you to stop me or to touch me! I am going into the house now, and I don’t mean ever to talk like this again. Only—I wanted you to know I am not ungrateful.” Here Dorothy broke down altogether, and fled swiftly toward the house, evading his outstretched arms. And Aylmer sat on the summer-house table and thought, as well as a man can think with every nerve in his body tingling with passionate love and his heart thumping like a sledge-hammer. All sorts of wild schemes flashed at a white heat through his brain, but the leading idea in them all was that he and Dorothy loved each other, and that the world believed her dead. Once the hue and cry after Phyllis Knight was over, and Doro- thy could carry out her intention of escaping with Cress- well to America, what was there to prevent him (Aylmer) from accompanying them thither? In some of the States divorce laws, as he knew, were elastic, and might be stretched to meet Mrs. Derrick’s case. It was outrageously unfair that she should remain all her life bereft of the shelter of a husband’s love through the treachery and villainy of such a man as Darcy Der- rick. Alymer’s fists clinched instinctively at the mere thought of the man. Hatred of him and overwhelming joy at the knowledge of Dorothy’s love elbowed each other CORME OOS (EC)