Weaker than a Woman — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

“Sed WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. =a iat - with, no idle whim, but the settled resolve of a woman in -_ whose heart love took a secondary place. Looking at her exquisite face he asked himself what if beautiful woman credit for a noble soul and a tender heart, _ while she had neither? Such things had been; men had made even greater mistakes than that. What if she were worldly and selfish, false and pleasure-loving, even to the core of her heart? Could any one so fair be so false? Could an ignoble soul live in a beautiful body? He looked at be Ss her; her most fair and lovely face was all stained with _ tears. Was such a contradiction possible as that she should willfully give him up, yet weep because she had lost him, that she should separate herself from him, refuse to marry him, yet weep because he was lost to her? He did not turn, as some men would have done, and ask himself, - all this time he had been mistaken, if he had given this — “Who shall understand a woman?” He tried patiently to — understand her. “Violet, you puzzle me,” he said. “Let me understand ; you love me, you say ?” | She sobbed out that she could not help it. “You love me, yet you willfully break your promise to marry me. You send me away of your own free will, not because you do not love me, but because I have not money enough: Is that it, Violet?” She did not deny it; it was the exact truth. He con- tinued : “You love me, and Iam what you call poor. You send me away, and aricher man comes. You will marry him because he is rich; you will marry him for his money ™ while you love me. Violet Haye, do you know what the law of God calls such a sin? Do you think your weak subterfuge of calling this crime of yours ‘changing your mind’ will hold good when you are judged for your ac- tions, and the just award is given to you? What is murder, Violet Haye? If that white hand of yours had thrust a sword into my heart, you would have slain me no less eruelly than you have killed me now.” He put her from him witha bitter cry—a cry that haunted her for long years. “You have slain the best part of me; you have slain my ‘love, my hope; and before the great Judge I shall accuse you of my murder, Violet Haye. I shall ask for the hope, the love, the life you have taken. I shall point to vou. and I shall cry out that you slew me because you loved the Eo m