Should She Have Left Him? — page 263: what you’re looking at

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

A BLOW FOR FREEDOM 257 may weep, but your tears are not of contrition— they are of disappointed pride.” Hilda, concluding her diatribe, left the room. So intense and virulent had she been that Dorothy fairly shuddered, while Trescotte was filled with pity for the woman so humiliated; and Mrs. Courtenay, after seeking sympathy from those she had come to denounce, went away murmuring something about a thankless child and a serpent’s tooth. Hilda’s suit was well on its way toward the day appointed for the taking of testimony before Adams arrived. He had come with a well-defined plan which should place him in a position of less em- barrassment than he was then laboring under. But on learning of the proposition of the Trescottes to adopt the boy, he was willing to defer action until the outcome of the movement could be ascertained. Indeed, he expressed not only a willingness, but an ardent desire to be reconciled to Mrs. Adams if suc- cess followed the effort, and thereby the stumbling: block was removed. Mr. Magrane seized the few days intervening before the taking of testimony in Hilda’s divorce suit, and journeyed to Buffalo. As he expected, Elsie received the proposition with alarm and dis- tress. Yet he set forth all the arguments, dwelling upon the doubtful position of the lad were the pres- ent conditions to continue, or Adams to obtain the divorce or declaration of non-marriage he was then preparing to seek. Too shrewd to offer the hope of Comicboolkkxs C@© 5}