The Man in Possession — page 191: what you’re looking at

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

186 THE MAN IN POSSESSION. is the worst of women. There is always that foolish - thing called sentiment in the background. They hide it, cloak it, deny it, but at some time or an- other it will show itself, and then everything else seems poor and commonplace and of no account.” ‘‘Yes,” said the girl, below her breath. ‘‘I can believe that—only sometimes one gets over it.” ‘You never get over it,” said Mrs. Lafaye ear- nestly. ‘‘You only dig a grave for it, that your tears perpetually water and your thoughts perpetually open. You may forget joy, pleasure, gratification, even ambition, but you dont forget pain, because it always hurts. It is always there, throbbing, burning, torturing you even when you think yourself cured.” She turned her face fo Kate, white and sorrowful and strangely earnest. The youth and beauty of it lent a deeper pathos to its altered expression. ‘‘T have told you my story,” she said, ‘‘ because I—I want to help you. No woman should throw away her youth, her beauty, herself, as a sacrifice to any one, or anything. It is a cruel thing, a base thing. Itis bound to exact punishment or lead to wrong. There is no help for it. It must. And even if you grow fairly content, 1f you do your duty, if you stifle feeling, there is always the chance of some one else appearing to disturb your peace—to force you Into thinking how different life might have been, and then—vwell, then there is no more peace for you ever—ever again ! ” ‘‘But 1f you knew that—that some one else was unworthy—if you knew that nothing could ever come of it, if it was all over, done with, finished, COMicloe (Sri C(O)