His Other Wife: A Novel — page 258: what you’re looking at

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

250 AN UN¥UST STEWARD. ‘‘Pardon me, my friend, if I hurt your pride by recur- ring to so small a service in comparison to the magnitude of my desire to serve you. It is necessary, in order to explain other things, that I should have dwelt for a moment upon that unimportant fact.” ‘*Go on, sir, if you please.” ‘There are circumstances of great delicacy connected with the duties imposed on me by your husband's will, that made me shrink from having any third party in any way concerned with his property. I deemed it better to constitute myself the factor in this business, and, instead of procuring advances of money from other sources, to assume the risks in my own person of taking the lands, if need be, in exchange for the funds.” ‘‘T think I can understand ¢haf part of it,” said the lady, with ever so light a curl of her delicate lips; ‘‘ but what are the ‘circumstances of great delicacy,’ which render it necessary that no ‘third party’ must be ‘con- cerned in the property?’ ” Croft cast his eyes to the ground, and seemed to suffer the keenest embarrassment. At length he said, with relnctance : ‘‘Dear Mrs. Morgan, my loyalty to the dead demands my silence, even at the expense of your displeasure.” A white indignation overspread the already pale cheek of the frail creature, and she exclaimed, with much heat: ‘“Mr. Croft, dare you insinuate that my husband con- fided to you any trust that you cannot mention to me?” (E(@) Eomicbooks: