Should She Have Left Him? — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

MR, ADAMS ARRIVES. 167 largely to the trouble, though. I think if it hadn't been for them we might have settled our differences in ourownway. The first trouble came from Elsie’s pestering me to be married again. Perhaps I was foolish, but you see I resented those five months she spent with Trescotte. Her persistent pestering never let it get out of my head.” “But you condoned those five months when you took her from Trescotte,” urged the lawyer. “That's all right. I know I did. And having done so, I should stand by it. That’s all right. I know I should. I suppose if I wasn’t prepared to do so, I should have left her where she was. But you know when a man wants a certain woman, he wants her, and he'll sacrifice everything, go through everything, to get her; forget everything but the thought of having her. It’s a kind of insanity, I suppose. At all events, that’s how it was with me, and the opposition of the Hallocks made me all the more determined to get her. But I kept this feel- ing of resentment against those five months with Trescotte from Elsie until the first baby came—the boy. The fact was—well, hang it! it was Trescotte’s boy, and that was all there was about it. There was . the living, ever-present evidence of the five months. I confess I hated the youngster, and I presume the more I hated it the more Elsie’s mother heart pitied and loved the helpless thing.” A strange expression stole over the lawyer’s face, and he partially turned to his desk and gathered the scattered papers together. Adams stopped, but as Comicloeoe S C@©