Should She Have Left Him? — page 269: what you’re looking at

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

256 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? I have done, you are wholly wrong. I left Walde. mar nearly a month ago; it was due to their persua- sions and influence that I returned to his house. That I had left hima second time and begun a divorce suit, they only knew when I came to them for shelter.”’ *“But why, child, did you not come to me, your mother, for advice?” asked the distressed Mrs. Courtenay, thinking that if Hilda had, how easily she could have prevented the dreadful suit. Hilda’s reply was crushing, and oh, the bitterness, the cruelty of it! “Because I do not trust you. Having forced me, young, ignorant, and innocent into this disgraceful marriage to suit your own ends, your opinion could have had no weight with me. I did not go to you, because you have failed as a mother to me; because you have used me merely as an implement in the game you were playing; because I was merely a stone on which to build increased social power; be- cause your ambition prevents you from judging between morality and immorality; because you would have sacrificed me, my heart, my soul, my life, to have saved your own pride; I went where someone could judge between right and wrong. You cannot. Icameto Henry and Dorothy. They are leading holy lives. Your influence over me is gone. You have done me a wrong; I cannot and will not forgive you. If this is unchristianlike, recollect Iam what you have made me. If my life is ruined, then you are the cause of the ruin. You CONnIICOO @ cS (GO)