Her Faithful Knight — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

30 The Other Man. the hope that blue serge represented the costume of a widow for a man who had been alive a little more than six months ago. It was an intensely painful and disa- greeable thought to remember that she had been mar- ried at all, and seemed to prove that he had greatly over- rated his powers of perception when he believed that he had read in her face not only childlike innocence, but an unconsciousness of the very passion of love. _ The knowledge of her profession was also an ugly reve- lation. Aylmer was too sensible to connect her calling with any reproach or slur upon her character, but he greatly disliked the thought that her mingled demure- ness and impulsiveness were the result of a dramatic training and not the natural expression of her feelings. At the same time, the fascination that she exercised over him was so strong that even now, when all hope of win- ning her seemed to be utterly swept away, he felt that life would be impossible without, at least, her friendship,sand that no woman would ever succeed in wholly effacing her image from his mind. Ten o’clock found him in the Museum sculpture gal- leries, but no opportunity for exercising his capability for disinterested friendship was offered him. The girl in blue serge came not that day, or the next, or yet the next again. Days grew into weeks, and Aylmer left off haunt- ing the galleries, contenting himself with occasional sur- prise visits, in the hope that she might have returned. He searched the Museum attendance book, and even made inquiries of the curators, but all to no effect. Miss Knight had not come back, and the British Museum knew her no more. | All that Aylmer could be sure of was that a Miss Phy]I- lis Knight or Mrs. Sergius Trevelyan lived or had lived scmewhere within a two-penny omnibus drive from Sloane street, presumably, therefore, in the Hammer- EOmiGcbdoo “S' (S@)