Vashti's Fate — page 301: what you’re looking at

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

296 DOUBTS AND ANXIETY. 3 sors own room. Arrived there, Thorpe gave him a seat, and himself standing, said, haughtily : . ‘‘Now, if you please, sir, state the object of your mission. to me.” : ‘“Your wife supposes you dead and mourns your loss. Her friends, knowing that you still live, have delegated me to ascertain definitely, and from your own lips, what your intentions may be with regard to her.” ‘“Good Heaven!” said Thorpe, striking the table with his clenched fist, ‘‘and is this the account I am called to after the cruel martyrdom I have endured?” : ‘‘T should judge you were passing the time quite pleas- ie -antly, from the little | have seen,” said Leon, somewhat nettled by the angry vehemence of Thorpe’s gesture and voice. | “1 don’t know what you have seen, sir,” said the pro- fessor, ‘‘but I call it the sheerest kind of aggravation when ai a man stays, at her express dictation, from a woman who oe 33 * is his wife only in name. I call it the most insulting form of aggravation for her friends or anybody else to call a man to a@tount under such circumstances. There, sir, I call cee that definite language. If my wife—if that woman sup-— poses me dead, let her continue to do so.” Ase ‘‘Most certainly we shall, having definitely ascertained — ce your feeling toward her. Her misfortunesare already hard Re deed that sent me from her. Did she not bind me by the most solemn of oaths never to approach her, save when she summoned me?” enough to bear; rest assured we shall not add to her bur- nae dens by informing her that the man she has deemed the : soul of honor, casts her off because of those very misfor- ie i 3 ‘“‘It is false!” Thorpe cried, hotly. ‘‘It was her own 4