Weaker than a Woman — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

110 WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. “You will never feel this fear again, Violet, will you?” he said, speaking more like himself than he had yet. “It is so absurd—yet perhaps it is natural to a sensitive mind like yours. J am sane now, but I have been mad. Does my face alarm you? You need only laugh at it, sweet. I have forgotten to eat and to drink since your mother’s let- ter came. The sun was shining brightly and warmly, but it seemed to change all at once into a scorching fire-ball, and I went mad. Yet Idid not lose my faith in you, Vio- let. I knew that you would never have spoken as your mother did, never have written as she did. I can forgive her; it is only natural that she should think so much of you. No man could seem good enough for you. - Il am not good enough, but I love you so dearly that my great love stands in the place of great riches or great rank.” Still she uttered no word—she dared not tell him the truth. : “You are strangely silent, Violet,” he said. “Have I frightened you ?” “No,” she replied; “but you have startled me—you look so ill, Felix, and so unlike your own self.” “No wonder, my darling,” he returned. “But I will not startle you again—I will remember how sensitive you are.” She looked up at him with a smile—so sirens smile at the men they lure to destruction. “Felix,” she said, “you should not love me so much, dear—you know what I have always told you about idols of clay.” ‘“T cannot help it; my mission in life is to love you.” ‘“T cannot ask you to come in and see me,” she said. ‘Miss Western does not like gentlemen; she never receives visitors.” “My darling, I must hasten home,” he told her. “But you have not informed me why you came here, Violet.” “Mamma wished me to come. I was not quite strong—lI wanted a change.” ‘“And why did you not write to me, sweet?” he continued. She paused one moment. Should she tell him or not? No—she could not; she loved him too much, and she was somewhat ashamed. She found an excuse; there was no need for it to be a very good one to satisfy him. “TI knew you were true to me, Violet,” he said. “I knew that it was your mother who had persuaded you—who had written that cruel letter without your sanction, perhaps your knowledge.” “I knew that she was going to write it,” Violet told him comicbooks.com — = .s ;