Vashti's Fate — page 231: what you’re looking at

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

i? ~ ‘ 2 Ba a. =< - 226 A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING a serpent like that gnawing at my vitals? How I trusted that woman! Professor Thorpe, I believed in that creature, and her influence over me has been diabolical. Will you ring the bell, sir?” and to the servant who answered it, she said : 2 “‘See if Miss Margery Gresham is in her own apart- ments, and ask if she will permit me to see her a few moments.” | While the servant was gone, she continued her excited pace to and fro, murmuring disjointedly, pausing now and then for a curt word or two to Professor Thorpe, who, making her no verbal reply, stood with his elbow on the top of a high-backed ‘chair, watching her with the very | expression in his deep eyes that had so aggravated her the day before. ‘Miss Margery will see you now, Miss Vashti,” said the servant at the door. She swept. him a formal courtesy, and with her slow, graceful step, left the room. Margery Gresham did not pretend to conceal her sur- prise at this call from Vashti, whom she had scarcely spoken with since before Mrs. Everleigh’s death. ‘‘T have come,” Vashti-said, abruptly, remaining by the door, with her hand on the latch; ‘‘ I have come to ask your pardon for my treatment of you in that affair about Dascomb. You were right, Miss Gresham, and I was wrong. Miss Dale is Percy Dascomb’s wife! Mean, pitiful liars, both of them. I ask your pardon, madam, and I thank you for your efforts to ssve me from becoming the betrayed and disgraced creature I should now be but for the thunderbolt that broke my mother’s heart.” ; It was the first time Vashti had alluded to her mother since her death. Standing there, with a haughty air that oh * re { _ ib ok ee, a* *t ; ; . Pt -. yt hae pre