Her Faithful Knight — page 234: what you’re looking at

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

230 Good News that Came Too Late. kind-hearted, hot-tempered, autocratic, spoiled woman, proud of her full-blown charms, which she had retained late in life, proud of her diamonds and all that was hers, and, above all, proud of her dinners, and revelliig in the triumphs of her chef’s skill. She had been touched, deeply touched, Dorothy re- membered, by the tale of Phyllis’ starving on Richmond Bridge, though she had but little sympathy for the story of her betrayal. And now both aunt and niece were dead, and that money which might have prolonged Phyl- lis’ life belonged to Dorothy, who could never spend one penny of it in making her sister happy. “Too late! It has come too late!” sobbed Dorothy, her hot tears falling on Phyllis’ ice-cold hands. “What can J buy for you now, my dear one, but the winter roses and lilies of the dead?” The news of this fortune, coming when it did, seemed a bitter mockery. She reflected, too, that Darcy knew of it, and, to a ruined spendthrift such as he, a wife with a large income would offer irresistible attractions. “He must never suspect it is I, Dorothy, who am alive, now,” she said to herself. “I must hide myself until he is ott of the neighborhood, and must then leave England at once with Cresswell, using Phyllis’ name until I have put many miles of sea and land between us. I might even go to America, and try to find my brother Shafto. I krow the firm to whom he was at first sent, and Shafto was always affectionate to me. It would be nice to find some one belonging to me—some one to protect me.” But very soon her thoughts wandered back to the many things she might have done for Phyllis, if only this money had come to her earlier. She was so accustomed to think for Phyllis, to work for Phyllis, to sacrifice herself daily and hourly for Phyllis, that now that Phyllis lay dead beyond all love and service, Dorothy’s life seemed a blank, : Gomicbooks (S@)