His Other Wife: A Novel — page 386: what you’re looking at

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

378 THE LOST IS FOUND. that had drawn him to that gorgeous beauty, as the poisoned chalice of an Eastern jungle flower draws the bee to drink and die. And, thinking on the fierce fever of that vanished time, a cold, shuddering aversion would creep through his blood. Verily, her wand was broken! A short time after Leda’s removal to her new lodgings, the busy fates gathered up and mended a broken thread in: the curious web into which her life was being woven with- out her will. One day Gordon Warren took from the package of letters delivered at his office one addressed to ‘‘ Messrs. Croft & Warren, Attorneys-at-Law.” Many thus directed had come to him since the tragic dissolution of copartner- ship, but this one bore a foreign postmark. He opened it carelessly, supposing it related to some mercantile claim for his collection; but his heart leapt to his mouth as he saw drop from the large business letter a little envelope, addressed to Mr. Croft, in Faith Hilary’s delicate, round hand, that he had learned to know and love so well during his long illness, when each days offering of flowers from the girl came, attended with a word of affectionate in- quiry penned in the free, light characters that now held his gaze, It was as if he had suddenly caught the sound of a voice from the other world, or as if some shadow of pass- ing spirits had fallen athwart his sight. For a little while he trembled with mingled awe and | Eomicbooks:.co