Out of the Past — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

42 Out of the Past. return to him nor obey him. She could still nurse the comforting belief that her father may have been a man of noble mind, whom she could honor. There was a phrase which had been erased from the letter. Examining it long and carefully with a magnify- ing glass, she at last deciphered the gross lettering, and dropped the sheet with a shudder. “It will be well for you not to ask any particulars of your parentage. I should be sorry to cause you unnec- essary shame and sorrow.” Rose looked down at the paper in terror. Could there be more tocome! After long gazing at it as though fas- cinated with its evil, she burned it in the candle-flame and scattered its ashes into the heavy mist of the cold dawn. Mme. Blanc found her crouched by the casement late in the morning and thought she had fainted. But, though her body was white and almost cold, her mind was busy with its problem, her heart was beating with anguish. Rose Lloyd, she thought, a foundling of shame whose place among rightful men and women hung upon secrecy or a lie—this, the real Rose Lloyd. There could be no home-going. She could not face the misery of her position as a disgraced object of char- ity. She must bury her secret with all she had loved. A shamed existence was what she felt her life to be in CONNICOOOKS.(E©