His Other Wife: A Novel — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

126 SPINNING A WEB. your good when I wrote you that letter. What you term desertion on my part was unavoidable. I had no option about Jeaving you. I would give my heart's blood to alter or to help you bear this bitter fate.” ‘‘Would you?” she asked, eagerly, and lifting to him her beautiful face, all wet with her passionate tears. ‘“You cannot doubt it.” ‘*You can help me bear it, and you alone—only let me feel that you do not hate and despise me for having given myself to this man whom destiny thrust upon me. Be kind to me—be my friend. Ah, if you knew my desper- ate need of your sustaining sympathy !” ‘It is yours, and all that the most devoted friendship of a true man can confer.” ‘‘ How I thank you,” said Leda, softly, as she rose, and, passing her hand through his arm, led the way toward the drawing-rooms,. On reaching the hall, she motioned him to enter the parlors beyond, and a little while later she re-appeared among her guests with no other sign of her late stormy emotions on her face than a more brilliant bloom upon the delicate skin—a darker luster in her magnificent eyes. Eomicbooks.¢o 3