The Illegal Marriage — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

THE ILLEGAL MARRIAGE, 115 passing into the body, was a bullet wound, which must have produced immediate death. They saw it all, then. Trippe had been fired on by some one, and the ball had entered the body of his horse. With one bound, the magnificent animal had sprung from the bridge, throwing his rider upon the bank, and falling into the stream. The current had swept the body down until it became tangled in some cypress roots, and thus it escaped the notice of those who had raised the insensible body of Doctor Trippe. Would the latter live to tell them who the assassin was? Stannard fervently hoped that he might, and the miscreant might be brought to justice. Remembering the hole that he had seen in the doctor’s coat some days before, Stannard tried to think who, of all in that vicinity, would be likely to commit such a deed. “Tf it was, indeed, old Hawks, he shall be hanged,” said Stannard to himself, as he rode on toward the castle, followed by the coroner and his party. As much occupied as his mind had been on that eventful morning, Stannard had dwelt much upon the position of Miss Morgan, and it made his heart ache to think of the troubles with which she was surrounded. Gladly, indeed, would he have taken them all upon himself. could he have done so. She had no one now to care for her—to be a father or guardian to her—and it must devolve upon him. “T will bea father to her,” he told himself; “TI will care for her as if she were my own sister. I can- not—alas! I may not—be nearer to her; but she GEomicboo cS (Ele)