His Other Wife: A Novel — page 310: what you’re looking at

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

302 LEDA’S COUP D'ETAT. At the end she said, lifting her clasped hands entreat- ingly : ‘‘To-morrow his infamy and my humiliation will be proclaimed in open court before the world. Guilty or not of the crime alleged against him, the fact of his former marriage and the existence of his former wife remains. What, then, am I better than an outcast, and an object of scorn and contemptuous pity for all the world? Oh, Gor- don! Gordon! remember that you promised my dead mother to befriend her lonely child; remember that it was your abandonment that sent me to this fate, and save, oh! Save me, at least, from meeting my disgrace alone—un- cared for, unsustained! I was not only willing to unite my destiny with yours when I still believed myself rich and honored, but I longed to prove my love for you by embracing your poverty and obscure station. Shall I now, in my hour of dire need, pray for your protection in vain?” : ‘God knows you shall not, so far as it lies in my power to shelter you,” said Warren, leaning forward, and reaching to her one of his thin, weak hands, that shook like an old man’s from sheer feebleness, His voice was husky with emotion. Leda seized the emaciated hand, carried it passionately to her lips, then pressed it to her heart, sobbing out words of gratitude, and mingling them with epithets of frantic devotion. It was some moments before Warren was able to detach ~ Eomicbooks.co 3