The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 270: what you’re looking at

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

THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER, 263 drain the chalice to its dregs! Would Henry were here! Why—why did I send him from me?” For more than an hour the unhappy man continued to pace up and down the narrow limits of the office, more like a wild animal in its den than a rational being. The more he viewed his position, the more desolate and unpromising it became. His countenance gradually assumed a rigid look, the lines of his face _ became harder, and his eye assumed that hopeless expression which despair imparts. Bitterly did he curse the weakness which had induced him to yield, first to an act of dishonesty, and then to the rejection of the only means of atoning the wrong. ‘The blow was the more severe, from its con- trast with the years of prosperity he had passed. His sin had found him, but it had not softened his heart. “‘ ‘Three days,” he murmured; “three days only, to decide between the humiliation of yielding to a wretch like ‘Small, or exposure! How those who have envied my success would triumph in my shame—how the mob would revile and scorn me.- Even if I escape the vengeance of the laws, public opinion would pursue me—brand me as the spoiler of the widow and the fatherless; my own drudges would spit at the mention of my name; I should be hooted in the very streets of Manchester. Anything but that,” he added, “ any- thing but that.” With these words he quitted the office, and entered the luxurious carriage which for the last two hours COniiclooecl SS (SO