Vashti's Fate — page 232: what you’re looking at

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

A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING, 227 seemed to demand rather than crave pardon, this reference to her mother, that had, as it were, forced itself from her lips, melted her to such touching softness of demeanor, that Miss Margery, with that fresh grief lacerating her own heart, took a step toward the girl, with outstretched hands, saying : ‘‘For the sake of that mother, who loved me and whom I loved, Vashti, let us be friends. Call me Aunt Margery, as you used to do.” ‘‘Heaven forbid!” ejaculated Vashti, recoiling close to the wall from her. ‘‘My father stands between us. You and I friends? No, no.” Margery Gresham’s extended hands dropped to her side, and she looked at Vashti with a white cheek and dumb horror in her eyes. Faltering away from her, she sat down, leaning her head upon her hand in gloomy thought. The latch clicked—Vashti was going out. ‘‘Vashti,” she said, in so changed a voice that the girl started, ‘‘come back to me and tell me all, and what you mean. Why should your father, of all others, stand be- tween us?” Vashti stood a moment in the door, trembling so that she could hardly stand, and then coming into the room, closed the door, and supporting herself ay a chair, said, with a face like a corpse: ‘*T have been told, Margery Gresham, that my father did not die as others do. I know hedid not. I can remem- ber the mystery that surrounded his death-bed, the un- seemly haste with which he was putin his grave. ‘Tell me, how did my father die—by his own hand?’ “No.” ‘‘ How, then?” Shaking as with a palsy, Vashti, unable to stand, slipped ComiIicboo cS com’