His Other Wife: A Novel — page 260: what you’re looking at

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

252 AN UNY¥USt STEWARD. ‘*Dear Mrs. Morgan, for your own and your child’s sake, do not read that paper. I was wrong to give it to you—wrong even to speak of it. Yet I felt bound to stay your mad purpose of setting the curious scrutiny of a stranger at work among documents that must surely lead up to “kis one. For Heaven’s sake, give me back the paper, and rest content with my assertion that I have acted with the utmost discretion for your des/ interests.” ‘Oh, my God!” Why—why did you say aught to cloud my faith in 4imP It is a cruel crime; it is worse than if you had stabbed me to the heart!” “‘It was the last and only resource to protect his memory from shame. Heaven knows I did not desire to give you this anguish.” ‘‘Ah, I see—I see it all now! It was behind “fis fortress of defense that you entrenched yourself to ruin me.” ‘‘Good Heaven, madam, do you rave?” “Mathew Croft, the world names you a hard, unscru- pulous, selfseeking man. I know little enough about either the theory or the practice of your calling; but instinctively I felt, from the moment of reading your last letter to me, that I had become the victim of that cupidity with which the world charges you; and every word, tone, and look of yours during our personal interviews has only fixed this feeling in my heart. It shall be as you say. I will not profane the sacred ashes of the man I loved by learning what he chose to conceal from me. I shall Eomicbooks:¢o 3