Beadle's Dime Novels No. 126: Old Jupe — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

44 OLD JUPE. daughter’s, bore his circumstances bravely, thinking that a very few weeks would bring every thing straight again. Court sat the second week in September; but as Luke was expected home by the 20th or 25th, Mary was granted a brief delay, to await his arrival. Some persons grumbled at even this favor, so strong was the belief in her guilt. Alas! all things went wrong for poor Mary. The day the court sat, she received a letter from her husband, saying that he was obliged to remain another month, as he had feared. This cruel disappointment almost crushed out hope and. life. To have to bear the ordeal alone, under such cireumstances, too, seemed to be impossible. ‘Yet thus it was to be, and Was. : Popular opinion now began to include Luke in its con- demnation. It was suggested that he had gone off so as to have a plausible pretext for getting suddenly rich; and that now his wife was detected, he had concluded to remain where the hand of the law could not fall upon him. Future events afterwards supported this theory until it became the settled conviction. Mary, expecting Tas so soon, and thinking it less cruel to break the news to him personally, than by letter, had not, at first, written of the trouble which had befallen her. Now it was too late. If Mr. or Mrs. Parcell had come to town, they would have been held on suspicion; but no one took a sufficiently active interest to ferret them out and arrest them. Mary wrote to her sister at St. Louis, but receiving no reply, concluded they - were not there. Mr, Harding, ankaewt to her, had bahce a trip to that city, on purpose to make the acquaintance of the pair, think- ing that he could decide whether it was best to compel their appearance, after seeing them; but they had left the place, and he obtained no trace of them. | comicbooks.con