Out of the Past — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

Out of the Past. 19 Robert’s young life had been unfolding, nebulous and uncertain in its values. It was twenty-one years since and he stood to-day within the walls of the monastery looking defiantly at his past, and watching his opportunity to break with it. Benedict had used a portion of his money in the search for his father; but to no purpose. Robert grew up proudly alone, daring every one with his quick, brilliant eyes, to cast the slur he hated. How ereat a scourge his unfathered life and its ill-fame had been no one can know who has not been born to wear that shirt of nettles. The ancient garden in which he and Benedict stood silently regarding each other, with a sense of the parting of ways, spread about them in a wide acreage of au- tumnal glory. The garden was mellow with memories of olden pomp and power, disclosed in its iron work of fantastic fashioning, in the make of its walls and in the stately beauty of its avenues. At the same time, the garden was young with the beauty of countless flowers— the life of the hour zealously fostered by the monks. At this moment, conscious of the old and the new ways of living, which seemed to lay hands upon him, each to make him its own, Robert stood watching Benedict, in whose hands he had reluctantly placed a few leaves of manuscript. CORNICLOOOKS (©)