Vashti's Fate — page 237: what you’re looking at

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

2 oe J a . “ ; q , . a» eee é ¢ SIRS ALE Wye ee re ae ORE BO ee - > 4 : =. oy ran Ty ‘ " ++ “ 2 i, Sg [a / ‘ ; . a a : a a | M2 MR ., ‘ - e ‘ J * i} ¢ 232 REVELATIONS—DESPAIR. was madly afraid that Percy might love you. Besides, by its failure, and by reason of my accession to such a snug little fortune as your mother left me, and your brother paid over to the utmost farthing, I have quite the upper hand of my dear Percy. I go to his arms. But before I leave, I cannot resist the temptation of a parting word—something in the way of a bequest to you all, for your kindness to me while under this roof. | ‘‘T have not lived here all this time without fathoming every secret of the dreary old place. ‘Tell Margery Gresh- am I know the specter that haunts the Hermitage. I have seen the horrid, limbless trunk crawl, and I know why it ¢ wanders there. ‘(Margery Gresham murdered your father! Let her deny it itshe dare. I have hinted this to you before, and it is the truth. She loved him before he married your mother, and to revenge herself for that she killed him, and, as if that were not enough she remained at Everleigh to make his children’s lives as unhappy as she made his before he died. But for her he would never have raised his gun upon Neil Roque; she knew that the man was not dead, and that her victim would not meet with hanging if he lived. She made the matter sure with her own hand, Doc- tor Gracie being prime assistant and conspirator.” And so on several more pages, but Vashti had read enough. She did not faint—she was not of that sort—but she sat down upon the bed, wondering if there was another so miserable a wretch on the face of the earth, wondering if death was worse than the angry pain that seemed to snap her heart asunder. Taking that terrible letter up again, her a fell upon this passage, at its close: ‘In the fullness of time, when it suits me so to do, I