Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 227: what you’re looking at

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

222 BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. refuse it; you may persecute her if you are unmanly enough, she will fly from you, she loathes—fears Victor Joselyn.’ “‘* Demon!’ I shouted and felled him to the floor. ‘‘He slowly rose, and stood once more before me, and gazed at me with folded arms. ‘““* You have struck me twice; you have called me slan- derer,’ he uttered, in the same fiercely repressed voice, ‘and yet this hand remains passive. Know you whom you have felled at your feet, Victor Joselyn? Your younger brother!’ “‘T turned from him in contempt. “¢«T would stab you to the heart for the insolence you have given me,’ he continued, bitterly; ‘but the same blood flows in our veins—the blood of the actress, Victor Joselyn—the false wife—the false mother, who forsook her children to enslave anew other men, and degrade other children—the woman who lives this day, and if I choose to whisper the word, will confront you and claim the hom- age of her first born. Ha ha! brother—let me shake your hand.’ ‘‘T waved him from me, and groaned and fell. ‘When I recovered, the mocking vision had disappeared, and Dr. Pemberton was holding me in his arms. “‘T poured the sinister story into his ears, and for the first time his faith was shaken in Isolina. ‘¢* Put her from you, boy! he exclaimed, ‘her heart has deceived you and her; she is perfidious, or that young man would not have been sent to you.’ ‘««JT will not believe Isolina false without sure proof! I said. ‘“We agreed that I should send a note to my wife, de- manding an interview; that I should describe the contents of the letter that I had received in England, and ask if she had written it; that I should demand the reasons of ser de- sire for a separation, if such was the case. ‘“ A messenger was sent with the letter, and ordered to deliver it into the hand of Miss Rienzi herself, and to wait for ananswer. He returned in an hour with a note, written, beyond all doubt, by the hand of my wife, and it sald: ‘“*«Despise me if you must; loathe me if it will assist you to forget me. The fault does not lie with you; J renounce our sacred vows; I demand liberty, and oblivion ofthe 15th of July. I have my reasons COMICOOO S (©)