The Man in Possession — page 247: what you’re looking at

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

242 THE MAN IN POSSESSION. he had played. ... She found herself wondering if her own behaviour in the matter of Tom Smith had presented itself in a creditable light to the eyes of Tom Rivérs. Instinct had told her the bailiff was not a bailiff, but no suspicion had been awakened at Croft that Tom Rivers was anything but—Tom Rivers. ‘‘And I thought him so honest, so loyal, so true,” she said to herself. ‘‘The sort of man a woman could respect as well as love. . . . And now—oh, how different it all seems.” She dashed the tears from her eyes, and once again began that stormy pacing of the room which seemed to afford some relief to her perturbed feelings. She longed for Mrs. Lafaye--for some. friend to whom she could speak frankly about the whole miserable, humiliating business. Her father would only laugh, and probably say that the alteration in the position of his creditor made the payment of his debt a matter of secondary importance. And how the memory of that debt rankled in her mind. It had been incurred on her behalf in order that she might be set free to go to Croft. Why, now she came to think of it, her very dresses had been bought with his, Tom Rivers’s money, in order that the said Tom Rivers might pursue the acquaintance at his leisure ! No wonder her pride was in arms—no wonder the hot blood burned and flamed in her cheek as she thought of this impertinent wooing—no wonder the dark eyes flashed wrathfully at the remembrance of that outspoken confession—no wonder that she told COMicloe <Sr ‘