Under Fire: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

BETRAYED AND BETRAYER. 17 ‘“RZRA :—Convinced at last that you had basely de- serted the woman whose devotion you betrayed, I found means, which I need not explain, of uncover- ing your track. You meant to be well rid of me, since you have tired of the plaything of an idle hour; but a wronged and desperate woman is not so easily cast aside. For myself, the future holds naught but the bitterness of death, since the man I so sincerely and blindly loved is unworthy of the heart so easily won. But I now demand and will exact justice. I have discovered your real name and position in so- ciety. Unless you would endure exposure of a kind which no honorable man could bear, the public ex- posure of your villainy, come to me at once. I have to say that which must be said. | ‘‘6 Laurel place. MARY BLUFF.’’ — ‘In the name of all that’s infernal, how could she have made this fatal discovery ? I must see her, that’s plain, else ruin will follow. Be it so. I must compro- mise this matter. If it’s money she wants, the affair can be easily arranged, but if she insists on recogni- tion—bah! that’s impossible. If she prove unreason- able—well, I must seek some effectual way of silenc- ing her importunities—and that at once.”’ With this pleasant reflection, the captain partly disrobed, and threw hiinself upon the bed. Some men beset as Ezra Trafton was would have courted sleep in vain. Not so the captain. His attitude toward women had been particularly unsavory, and the constant fondling of an evil tend- ency had so benumbed his conscience that anything in the nature of remorse for his many delinquencies made but a feeble impression upon that calloused organ—his heart. It is said that no man is so bad but he may at some time, however unwillingly, be surprised into betray- Eomicboo (E(0) cS mi