Laura Brayton — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

LAURA BRAYTON. 13 Withers. I smiled when he came to my office and told me a child, a sweet baby girl, was born to him and her. I smiled when he told me her health was declining, and her physician said she must go to Cuba for her health. I smiled when he told me what ship she was going in, for I knew the captain well—well, Mr. Withers. I smiled when he told me that he could not leave his business to go with her, and would follow two months later. I smiled when I shook hands with her and kissed the baby on board the ship, and I smiled when I told Ben Hawk to take good care of them, for they were precious— in the eyes of your brother. And three weeks after I smiled—yes, Mr. Withers, I smiled—when I car- ried the news to your brother that the ship had gone to pieces on Carysfort Reef below Cape Florida, and only the captain and one of the crew had been saved. You were in Europe then. Ha! ha! When he saw the Savannah paper that con- tained the accourt, Mr. Withers, he dropped as if he had been shot through the heart.” - The voice of the lawyer had risen tone by tone almost into a shriek as he continued, and his look - was now almost fiendish. “Tt did break his heart. It sent him out a wan- derer over the face of the earth, to perish in some far-off land, or he never has returned to his home or me, and he must be dead!” said Mr. Withers, mournfully. “But, Mr. Sharp, I never knew that -you found pleasure in his misery, you who were so Eomichbooks (0)