Should She Have Left Him? — page 254: what you’re looking at

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

248 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? “They will talk—the world, I mean—anyway,” put in the little widow very decidedly. “If you don't take the child, people will talk; and if you do, they will. Why, if I had taken the child and adopted it, as I proposed, they would have whispered that it was my own; that I had had it conveniently hidden until I could become a widow.” “Why, Lou!” cried the horrified Dorothy. “They would. Oh, I know this charming world of ours. Well, objection number two is disposed of. Now for objection number three.” Trescotte’s face suddenly sobered. He began impressively: “Do not let anyone here misapprehend my words in this statement. But I am sure no one here will charge me with failing to give to my wife the deep- est love and the highest admiration for her sterling character and true nature. When I say it now, I say it before friends, who, when the clouds over us ‘vere the darkest, and when there was danger and --oroach in association with us, held out to us the sand of warm friendship, and I know that they will xccept my words as being as sincere as they are m fact; ” Mr. Magrane and Mrs. Trevor-Allen bowed in response, not caring to trust to voice, for they were both affected by the deep feeling vibrating in Tres- cotte’s tones. Dorothy, with heightened color and dimmed eyes, asked gently: “Harry, is it necessary to say this?” “I think it is, in my own right,” replied Trescotte Comicbooks.€© 3}