Stella Rosevelt — page 203: what you’re looking at

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

MALICIOUS FALSEHOODS. 197 to it, bowed her head and covered her face with her hands, while’a low cry of despair broke from her lips. She had not dreamed that the man whom she hed learned to love, who, with his open, handsome face, his frank, manly ways, had won her deepest respect, her strongest affections, could be guilty of so cowardly an act as to betray her thus, And yet he must nave done so, else how could Mrs. Richards have known anything about the mitter? Yes, without doubt, he had feared that she would openly denounce him before the family where he had so unexpectedly found her, and so had given this version of the great wrong that he had done her in order to shield himself His own prospects of winning the rich heiress must not be interfered with, so he adopted this coup de/at of going to Mrs. Richards and, with apparent frankness, confessing that his trifling attention toa silly girl had resulted in leading her to believe she had won a wealthy and titled husband. This was just what Mrs. Richards had wished to make Star believe, and she succeeded only too well, for the voung girl was well-nigh crushed to the earth with a sense of shame, and humiliation, and vounded love. And yet, even while she felt that Archibald Sherbrooke—she could not think of him in any other character—had been guilty of a most cowardly and treacherous act, had steeped his soul — in sin by winning her heart to break it, and thus ruining her whole life, she loved him still, “ Eomicbooks..c¢o =