A Fair Fraud — page 230: what you’re looking at

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

A Fair Fraud 219 The fellow had been her lover, and she cared for him still; she was grieving over his death. But Kenneth Drury had no idea of all that Hester had gone through during the past night. Had he been a witness of the terrible scenes which had taken place between the mother and daughter—of the threats and hysterical tears—of the angry curses that Mrs Lane had poured out upon her child—or, worse still, had he seen that beautiful woman whom he had admired and reverenced as the mother of his Hetty, dragging herself across the floor on her knees, grovelling, almost prone upon the carpet, whilst she implored her daughter to spare her the ruin and deeradation of her impending confession, then surely he would have pitied the girl from the bottom of his heart ? And all through those terrible night hours Hester had remained calm and strong. ‘One of us must speak, mother,’ she had said ; ‘and if you will not, then I must.’ ‘If you speak you will ruin me!’ had been her mother’s cry. ‘The whole of my life will be exposed as a sham and a fraud. I shall never be able to hold up my head again, or show my face to anybody.’ ‘Better that than that my father should be buried under a false name, and that the GORMGIOO oO G' Q)