Laura Brayton — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

LAURA BRAYTON, 9 the room as if a longer stay there were repugnant to her feelings. “T can’t see why you should wish me to marry her. She shuddered while she looked at me,” said Bartram. : “The why is nothing to you. That it is my wish is enough,” said Sharp, sternly. “My plans and my secrets are my own. When you marry her you will have twenty thousand dollars to risk and lose at the gambling-table, where you sacrifice all you ever can raise.” | “Whose money? She is poor, you say.” “That depends on me. She might be as rich as the wealthiest in the land, or she might be as I have told you, poor.” “You wish me to marry her—you might at least tell me who and what she is. Iam not much, I know, but I have some pride left.” “Yes, enough and more than enough for its slender foundation,” said Sharp, sneeringly. “Mr. Walter Withers is comin’ up the street, headin’ this way, sir,” cried a tall, lean, shock- haired man, dressed in a suit of seedy-looking black, with a dirty-looking cravat bundled about his long, slender neck, coming in unbidden, as if he belonged there. “Very well, go down to your copying-room, Nathan, and take Bartram—this man here—with you, Ihave more to say to him when Mr. Withers has gone.” Gomicboo cS €o