Weaker than a Woman — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. 107 the scene to her husband; “but what can be done? There. is one thing that I am really thankful for—he has not the least idea about Sir Owen. Jam not nervous, but I do be- lieve that if he suspected what has happened he would kill him.” As Felix left the house to return home, Jennie, a smart housemaid, who had often opened the door for him, and who thought him a noble-looking gentleman, ran after him. “Do forgive me, sir,” she said; “but you have always been so good to me, and I know all aboutit. I am so sorry for you, sir, that I cannot sleep for thinking of it.” He tried to look indifferent, to smile, but he could not: his pride and self-control broke down at these pitying words. “Tell me what you know, Jennie,” he said. “They have sent her away, sir, so that you should not see her and persuade her. They have kept it quite a secret where she is gone—no one knows—but I stole into her room and saw her trunk addressed to North Alton, and I know that Mrs. Haye has a cousin living at North Alton. She is gone there, sir, and nowhere else.” “Thank you, Jennie,” he said—“ you have proved your- self a friend.” . Jennie would not take the sovereign he offered her, and the sympathy he read in her face cheered him. “Tt will be all right when I see Miss Haye,” he said. “They have over-persuaded her. She loves me—and I trust her.” CHAPTER XXII. TEMPORIZING, Felix sent his clerk to Vale House with a note saying that the family were not to be alarmed if he did not return that evening, as he had some important business to transact in a town some miles distant; and Darcy Lonsdale, who was too ill then to feel an interest in anything professional, feebly blessed him as he listened. ‘He works hard,” said Kate, as she read the note; then she sighed, thinking how different matters would have been had Felix loved Evelyn instead of Violet. The Hayes had stood aloof from them in their troubles; they had ex- pressed but little sympathy, and Mrs. Lonsdale felt it Keenly, Violet had not been to see them as Eve Lester had Eomicbooks (eo)