Her Faithful Knight — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

For Phyllis’ Sake. 169 loving one of the opposite sex had never yet been called into play, although, with all her capability of hating as strongly as she loved, she detested, for her sister’s sake, the unseen and unknown Sergius Trevelyan. But at this juncture neither hate nor love was in ques- tion. Ina very few days’ time she would be in desperate straits for money, while her total failure as an actress, together with her recent inability to sell her drawings, had seriously weakened her belief in herself. Two other - persons—her sister Phyllis and poor, helpless Cresswell, depended upon her utterly, and looked to her for entire support; and now, as a profession, marriage—which, ac- cording to Dr. Morgan, was a woman’s only vocation— was offered to her—marriage with a man young, hand- some, well off, her superior in social station, passionately devoted to her; a man, too, who had already shown her the greatest kindness and generosity, and who had been the means of providing her with remunerative work for the past few weeks. Every one seemed to think she ought to be touched by Darcy Derrick’s devotion, and hasten to accept him. His mother had urged his cause, and Mrs. Stourton-Chepe had done her utmost to dispose Dorothy favorably to- ward him. In strong contrast with the secret and shame- faced wrong of her sister by the villainous Sergius Tre- velyan, the Hon. Darcy Derrick’s infatuation for his lead- ing lady, and her apparent indifference to it, was the common talk of the company. He told every one he met that he loved her and wanted to marry her. It had even come to the ears of his invalid brother, Lord Der- rick, who had written to remonstrate with his junior on “throwing himself away upon an actress.” Mrs. Stour- ton-Chepe had seen Lord Derrick’s letter and had quoted it to Dorothy, who had tossed her pretty head and de- clared that Lord Derrick need have no fear that she EOMmiGcbdoo “S (S@)