His Other Wife: A Novel — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

SPINNING A WEB, 21 of the meal were over, and the ladies had left the dining- room. Declining to participate in the protracted libations of his host and the other gentlemen, Warren lit a cigar and went out alone upon the terrace to smoke it. The won- derful luster of the southern stars rendered the moonless night so softly clear that the glitter of dew-drops and the gleam of the orange blossoms shone through the dark- ness, as Warren passed along the grassy slope that edged the building, making his way to an arbor, covered with yellow jasmine vines already in full bloom, and distilling their rich perfume from the golden bells that swung dreamily in the light breeze. There were rustic garden chairs in the arbor, and here Warren seated himself. Through the opening under the vine-wreathed archway he could see a light from the win- dow of the room which Mrs, Morgan had occupied during her last illness. The hours he had passed beside the pale sufferer came vividly back to his thoughts, and he remembered with a remorseful pain how he had lately ignored his promise to the dying woman—that he would be ever a tender and considerate friend to her child. Beyond this memory rose the strange confession of the widow concerning him who - was now the rightful guardian of her child’s life. A tangled skein of destiny, truly, seemed the tissue of circumstances in which Gordon Warren found himself meshed. Amid such troubled reflections the time passed Eomicbooks:.¢o 3