Roxy Hastings — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

ROXY HASTINGS. 125 ort Alfred, but it might not add materially to het misery to wed another, and even if it did why she must not con- sult her own comfort alone. There might be something in wealth and fashion to com- pensate for a broken heart, and she would try it, since she must. “I would have died first,” I hear some maiden exclaim. “She was no heroine to consent to such an ignominious surrender of herself.” No; she was no heroine. She was a good, loving girl, accustomed to obey, distrustful of her own judgment, and perhaps not fully aware of her rights, for, as we have said, she was of legal age. Blame her not, fair reader, for you Mee soon see with what a bleeding heart she blamed her- self. Often Lucy nearly resolved to look up the Lees, who now lived very far from them, and learn streets about Alfred, but she was ashamed to do so. With what consistency could she, the aiantad bride of a reputed millionaire, make inquiries after a former lover, whom she had been compelled to discard only for his pov- erty ? The proprieties must be observed, whatever else befell. But Lucy was in the habit of reading the newspapers, and about three weeks before the day appointed for her wedding she saw that fearful item which, almost at the same hour, had stricken Alfred’s mother and sisters with terror akin to madness. She was found swooning in the breakfast-room with the morning journal at her feet, and when she was resuscitated by her frightened friends, she. muttered, pointing shud- deringly to the paper, as if it had been a basilisk : , “Tl have murdered him !” All efforts to soothe her were unavailing. She denounced herself, her parents, her affianced hus- band in vehement terms, and wished that she had died be- fore her cruelty had driven her lover to the war, and en- tailed upon him so dreadful a destiny. This mental paroxysm lasted several hours, during which she begged that her father, if he would not see her die, would make some effort to avert Alfred’s threatened fate. Her condition was so alarming that the frightened father obeyed her request to hunt up the Widow Lee, and get all the information which she had on the distressing subject. But although Mark found the place on the afternoon of EComicbooks.¢o