Beadle's Dime Novels No. 126: Old Jupe — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

THB WIDOW. 69 ° devoured him. She saw all this, yet never, foraday, did she give up her fixed purpose which was yet to bring this man to her feet. Fate seemed to favor her unholy purpose. On the night preceding the day on which Bryant was to leave San Fran- cisco for the mountains, Parcell got into a quarrel with a Spaniard, in the saloon where they were playing, and was stabbed to the heart by his fiery enemy, He was carried out lifeless from the scene of his last and fatal stake. Annette was aroused from her slumbers, and threw on a dressing-gown, only to confront the corpse of her husband as it was carried ever the threshold into her room and laid out upon the bed, from which she had just sprang. A. shock like this would be felt by the most hardened. For a few days, Annette was quite stunned and bewildered, an object of interest and sympathy to all who knew of the young wife, left thus suddenly without a protector, in that city of sin. Luke delayed his departure until after the funeral; he then again advised her to return to the States, making the same offer as before. But, no! Annette refused to go, with a resolution which surprised him, “I can make my living here, easier than there. If you will do as you once proposed, Luke —give me a chance to open a boarding-house,” “ Well, wait until my return, then. You are not fit for it yet. Stay quietly in your room at the hotel; and when I get back, I will see you started in a house of your own.” He went off, leaving her to foster wild hopes. She was free, now—free to marry again! and if Luke were not, he could at any time render himself so.. Luke was going to be rich, too! one of the richest men in California! Dazzling visions of the future opened before her—a life of ease and splendor passed in Ais society, for whom she had gold her soul to the evil one. | She could have had suitors enough, ere she had been a widow two months, in that land destitute of the softer sex, for she was young, lady-like and handsome; but, as long as there was any hope of drawing Luke within her sphere, she ‘would not give it up. Pique and wounded vanity had much to do with this, revenge had more, and a fierce passion which it were wrong to call love, had most, This passion was 126 3 comliclooks.com