Weaker than a Woman — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

PSP Meee eT a! & » th ae Nes ie . a ee ye ng led > a , 2 os WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. 161 was her boudoir—a room hung with blue silk and lace, which had a rich carpet and magnificent furniture of ebony and blue satin; costly pictures lined the walls, rare flowers stood in beautiful yardinieres. The apartment was perfect in its way, and the golden-haired girl who stood in it looked like a fitfing occupant. She took out a little key and opened the desk. How well she remembered the perfume of violets—the faint, sweet perfume that she had always liked so much. There lay the great bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon—letters on which a life of love and passion had been wasted; there, too, lay the portrait that Felix had given her when he came home from college—a portrait that had seemed to her one of the finest works of art. She would not open the letters ; it would be folly to irritate old wounds. She would burn them ; she ought to have burned them before her marriage, but her mind had been in such a whirl then she had not thought of it. She went to the fire-place and stirred the fire into a bright flame. She had not thought what she was about to do would pain her—it had seemed ‘an easy thing to burn old letters, but when she placed the first bundle in the midst of the flames, it seemed to her that she was burning a living thing. Alas for the love wasted in them, the pas- sion, the pathos! It seemed to her that she was torturing Felix again; the hiss of the flames was like a reproachful voice. Stillit must be done. One after another she threw them all in, until the last was destroyed. By that time the color had died from her face, and her hands trembled. Then she came to the portrait; of course she must de- stroy it. And what was that folded so carefully in the tissue-paper near it? A spray of lilac, withered and dead. She remembered the day and the hour when it had been gathered. She took the portrait in her hands: there could be no harm in looking at it for the last time. The noble, handsome, frank young face—how she had loved it once. How those eyes had watched her—how those lips had ~ kissed and worshiped her! It must go. She looked at it intently for a few minutes, and then she held it over the flames, but she could not destroy it—she could not see the flames leaping round that face. It was impossible. She wrapped up the portrait quickly, and locked it out of sight. White and breathless with emotion, her hands trembling, her heart beating, she looked up suddenly as her husband entered the room. EOMICcbOoOKS (G (6) m