Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 237: what you’re looking at

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

228 EXONERATED,. ‘“<On the cards!’ echoed ‘Eddie,’ scornfully. ‘Deny this, Florrie.’ | “Florrie hid her face in confusion. | ‘*Tion’t be vexed, Eddie,’ she uttered, soothingly, from the depths of his broadcloth; ‘you know I love only you, but you are poor and he is rich. Be sensible, dearest, and listen while I give you the hundred reasons why I must put up with the gilded fool.’ ‘‘Can you picture to yourself, old man, with what dig- nity and dispatch the ‘gilded fool’ bundled out of that house? I did not want to hear even the first of the hundred _ reasons she volunteered to impart to him. I beat an igno- mfinious retreat and left the field free to ‘Eddie.’ ‘The following morning I made an excuse for not going to a dinner to which I had promised to take both women. This elicited a plaintive reply from Florence, entreating to know what had occurred to change my mind, so I wrote again and explained so fully that then and there the cur- tain fell on that love episode forever. As luck, or ill-luck, would have it, the very same day my father unfolded to me the plan he and Mr. Clayton had formed to marry Ger- trude and myself. I came around to you and confided to you what I chose, and you put your own construction on what I told you. You know all that occurred since then. Yes,’’ and he drew a deep breath, ‘‘I abandoned Florence remorselessly, leaving her at liberty to either marry ‘Ed- die’ or return to the country and her tyrannical sister— just whichever suited her fancy. I never saw her after.”’ ‘‘She was false, then,’? murmured Dick, nodding with a satisfied air. ‘False to the core,’’ ejaculated Arthur, with a gesture of repugnance, ‘‘and I discovered it in the nick of time.”’ COMME DOOKS.EO)