The Argosy — page 177: what you’re looking at

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

162 Court Netherleigh. me no one will ever know, but there has not been one moment’s wavering in my mind in regard to its absolute necessity. Lord | Acorn, I think you cannot blame me. Imagine yourself in my place, and then see whether you do.” “T don’t, I don’t, looking at it from your point of view,” said the Earl. ‘I am thinking of Adela, and the blow it will be to her.” “A blow ?—to be rid of me? a not. It is what she has wished for years.” “In talk. Girls will talk—silly minxes! ‘To be put away by you, Grubb, and from her home, is quite another thing.” ‘She must care for my home as little as she cares for me. Indeed she has already taken the initiative, and left it.” Lord Acorn wheeled round on his heel, in surprise. ‘ Left your home, Grubb? What do you mean?” Mr. Grubb looked surprised in his turn. ‘ Did you not know it? Is she not here ?” ‘She is certainly not here, and I did not know it. Confound these silly women! She has run away, I suppose, to hide herself from—from 7" “From the law,” Lord Acorn would have said; but he did not end the sentence. He asked Mr. Grubb when she went, and how, and if he had any idea where she was. Mr. Grubb had not any idea, and related all he knew: he had supposed her to be at Chenevix House. Heaven alone knew, or ever would know, the terrible shock the discovery of his wife’s treachery brought to Mr. Grubb. That she should have been capable of robbing him, of forging his name and his partner’s, of obtaining the money, all in so imprudent, so barefaced a manner, and of using it to pay her gaming debts, would alone have filled him with overwhelming dismay. But that she should have allowed the guilt and the punishment to fall upon another; and that she should have impudently denied her own guilt to himself, and flung back with scorn his entreaties for her confidence and the offer he made to shield her in all tenderness, shook his soul to the centre. From the hour of his enlightenment he was a changed man. ‘That which the insults, the scorn of years, had failed to effect on his heart, was accomplished now. His consideration for his wife had turned to sternness ; his love to righteous anger. Never again would he bear her contumely ; no longer should his home be hers. ‘This most fatal action of hers—the crime she had committed, and the innocent tool she had made of Charles Cleveland—afforded Mr. Grubb the justifica- tion for extreme measures, which he might otherwise have lacked. During the hours he spent by his mother’s sick bed, he formed and matured his plans. Not with Lady Adela would he enter on the negotiations for their separation, but with her father and mother. She must return to them ; must live under their protection | and guidance, omichbooksrco