Weaker than a Woman — page 269: what you’re looking at

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

260 | WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. her. The old love so long trampled down and repressed seemed to leap into new and vigorous life. “Never again!” she repeated. ‘I love you—and I would be true to you!” “Then give me a proof. I hate this wealth for which you forsook me! I hate this splendor and magnificence for which you bartered your truth and fidelity. I will never benefit by them. They robbed me of you, they de- stroyed the best part of my life—I will have none of them. No man shall say of me that I profited by your falsehood and enjoyed the price of your sin—for it was asin, Violet. Listen to me, my darling. This is what my honor dictates —and my honor is dearer to me than my life. I love you, and ask no higher gift from Heaven than to call you my own; but you must come to me unfettered with dead Sir Owen’s wealth—I will have none of it. You must give up your mansion, your jewels, your servants—all the magnifi cence furnished by him. I will provide a beautiful house for you—not grand and stately like his, but a home that shall be a heaven of love. You married for money, Violet —money did not bring you happiness. Now marry for love—that will.” She looked up at him with a bewildered air. “IT do not understand. Do you mean that I am to sur- render all the fortune my husband has left me 2” ‘I mean just that, Violet; I will never share it.” “But, Felix,” she said, ‘that would be absurd, now that it is all mine to do as I Jike with. What could I do with it?” | “Build hospitals, churches—anything you like except keep it.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “Do you not think that that is very hard?” she said. “No, I do not; to share it, to benefit by it, would seem to “me like sharing a sin. There is the true test of love, Violet. I forgive with all my heart the fault that you say was committed in the thoughtlessness of youth—now I give you the chance of redeeming it. Give up the wealth that tempted you to do me wrong, and I will bless the day that brings you to me again.”’ He looked at the diamond necklace she wore; unclasping it, he laid it upon the table. “Your neck is a thousand times more beautiful,” he said, “ without that circlet. Can you give up all such deck- ings, Violet?” “It is such a thing to ask me,” she said. Eomicboo (S.