Vashti's Fate — page 302: what you’re looking at

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

DOUBTS AND ANXIETY. 297 ‘<Tt was a strange oath for a husband to make to a wife. If she was indeed so dear to you, how came you to take such an oath ?” | Thorpe made a gesture of the most fiery impatience. ‘“Your question is a most insulting one. Nevertheless, I will answer it. For the sake of calling her mine I would have foresworn eternity. It was the only condition on- which she would even suffer the ceremony of marriage to be said over us—a mockery it was, too; the bitterest and most hollow of mockeries. I never dreamed that she would exact the fulfillment of so monstrous a vow. Don’t tell me I cast her off, sir, when I have entreated her by every law, human or divine, to cancel that oath. In despair, at last, [ ceased even to write to her. I tried to forget, though I might as well have tried to forget myself; and, after all, the only excuse she can find for my silence, is that I am dead.” Leon Brownlee rose from his seat in much agitation. ‘There is some strange mistake here. Vashti was not the only one who supposed you dead. Your death, the announcement of your loss by shipwreck, was in all the papers of your city.” ‘“And almost immediately contradicted % ‘‘T know nothing of that, and I know that they knew nothing of it at Everleigh till months after. Then Lenore Everleigh blundered upon that account of your almost miraculous escape from death, and wrote immediately to you, without Vashti's knowledge. ” ‘And why without her knowledge ?” ‘* Lest the shock of your desertion of her in the haat of her greatest calamity should kill her.” | ‘<Sir, this is an idle play upon words. There was no desertion in the case—at least, none on my part ” comicbooks €O m ,