The Widowed Bride — page 221: what you’re looking at

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

: : ? : a12 | THR WIDOWED BRIDE «Woman! do not touch me!” he uttered. ‘‘Do not dare to extend to me the hand which murdered Arthur Huns- worth!” — | She sank on a chair, as suddenly as if his words had been ; bullet speeding to her heart, and covered her face with her hands. ‘‘Adelbert! you too!” she gasped, faintly. “Ts it true?” he demanded, standing before her with un- bending severity, although her piteous accents might have melted a heart of stone. ‘It is true!” she answered, suddenly dropping her hands and seeming to fling aside all disguise with the boldness of desperation. ‘‘Yes, itis true! I did the deed, but it was _ for Blanche! Do not even the wild beasts of the jungle fight for their young? And now—now—”’ with her voice dy- ing into a groan of inexpressible anguish, ‘‘it is all in vain —the black shadow of her wretched mother’s guilt will darken her innocent young life. If I could perish upon the scaffold alone I would not care—if I alone could bear the guilt, and contumely, and scorn—but my child would have to bear it all! I did it! I planned that the children should —no, not be drowned—lI had not reached the stage of mur- der, then,” she added, bitterly, ‘‘but fall into the river, in their childish play, when no human aid was nigh to rescue them. But my accomplices were too weak, or too scrupu- lous to carry out the details of the bold schemeI had marked for them. ‘hey had not even the courage and resolution to keep them forever in the far away land, whither they took them. Would I have allowed them to come back as the heir- esses of Glenhampton and snatch my little Blanche’s inher- itance from her hands? No one but Arthur Hunsworth knew the real history of the children in the deserted Icdge, or was acquainted with old Jason Garfield’s identity. I put him out of the way forever!” she said, recklessly. ‘‘And then I came back to the castle and dressed myself in the clothes that lay by Antonia’s bedside—she was addicted to sleep walking at times of unusual weariness or excitement, you know, and I resolved that if any suspicion were awak- ened it should not fall upon me. I put up my own abund- ant hair and fastened on the flaxen wig I had worn in tab- © leaux, only the Christmas before, and I crept, at the dead of night, to the deserted lodge, and looked upon the ae . faces of Allegra’s children as they lay there side by side, comrcbooks.co