His Other Wife: A Novel — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

124 SPINNING A WEB. ‘‘Maybe; but I cannot live on under the killing sense of your contempt—you may pity or hate me as you will when I have told you the truth, but I will not bear the wrong you do me now in your thoughts. I can see in your every glance that you believe me false and heartless.” He could answer nothing to this—she had correctly in- terpreted his thoughts. Without further resistance, he fol- lowed her into the library. Some of the gentlemen had joined the ladies in the drawing-rooms; their mingled voices blended with the lively music of Miss Draper's Bramra. Leda placed herself upon a low couch, deep in the em- brasure of a broad window. Warren did not take the seat at her side, but remained standing almost in front of her, lightly leaning one arm over the tall back of a carved chair. The light from a single lamp streamed through a green glass shade, making a moonlight dimness through- out the apartment. Leda’s face seemed strangely pallid in this wan half-light. _It was a story to touch the keenest sympathies of a strong, true heart that she told, with the painful emphasis of broken sentences and suppressed sighs. At the close of it she said: ‘‘You had renounced and deserted me. He showed me my dead mother's letter to him, expressing her hope and desire that I would become his wife. I was homeless and a pauper. What remained to me but this marriage? Marriage! Oh, God, no! but a ‘detested bondage more EComicbooks: (E(@) im