The Man in Possession — page 280: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAN IN POSSESSION. 275 ‘‘Would it be Miss Kate’s intinded she’s maning, ma’am?” she asked. ‘‘Ves—sSir Wilfred Jocelyn. How strange... . how fateful it seems,” murmured Mrs. Lafaye. - ‘Strange is it? And no wedding, and Miss Kate may be a widdy before she’s a wife. Shure, tis the bad luck that’s on this house and the people in it. Ah, why wasn’t he contint to stay where he was, the poor gintleman, and kape to his telegrams. Shure, he wouldn’t be where he is at this blessed minnit if he’d done that. Ah, what will we ail do now, at all, at all?” : ‘‘He may not be seriously injured,” said Mrs. Lafaye. ‘‘ Accidents like that are not always fatal, Biddy.” ‘*The saints forbid, ma’am! but shure, if he’s in one o’ thim hospitals the surgeons will be taking off an arm or a leg of him before any frind can step in to prayvint it. And then where'll he be, poor sowl? And it’s not Miss Kate we’d be willing to see marrying a cripple. Shes so proud and so beauti- ful,” ‘“And just because she is so proud and so beauti- ful it’s the very thing she'll be likely to do,” almost groaned Mrs. Lafaye. She felt that Fate had not served her purpose at all. Kate could not possibly break off her engage- ment now. It would look so mean, so unwomanly. The affair in which she had interested herself so warmly began to assume an air of complication that defied disentanglement. All her pleasantly vague ideas as to the possibility of smoothing matters, or COMicloe (Sri C(O)