I Forbid the Banns! — page 365: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE BEGINNING OF A QUEST. 355 view with Mr. Hardy. It was humiliating enough for him to feel that the prediction of this commonplace prophet had been amply realized, without the need for the extreme deg- radation of coming into the presence of the prophet with the confession that the prediction had been realized. What did it matter how he was humiliated—how he was degraded, if only he succeeded in inducing Bertha to return to him? | He got into a hansom, and all the time that he was driv- ing through the park and down Sloane Street he was think- ing what he should say to her to induce her to return to him. He did not arrive at a conclusion that could possibly be regarded as satisfactory. What words could he say to her that should make her forget the words which she had over- heard when he had been by the side of Marian Travers ? The hansom pulled up at the house he had once known so well. . The brass plate bearing the name of Mr. Hardy, and stating his connection with the Carnisolist Society, was extremely bright. Fromthis fact he judged that the Hardys . had just obtained a new maid servant. He judged aright. After a preliminary scrutiny of him through two leveled laths of the Venetian blind at one of the windows, a strange servant opened the door, To ask a stranger if Mrs. Charlton was in the house would be to evoke a gaze: of bewilderment that might make further inquiry difficult. He asked for Mrs. Hardy. Mrs. Hardy was not in the house, and the servant declined to pledge her word as to the exact hour when she would return. Yes, Mr. Hardy was within. He was. Before Julian had concluded his inquiries the secretary of the carnisolists appeared at the door of the room to the left. He was in his shirt sleeves and held a pen. ‘What, Mr. Charlton?” he cried. ‘* Pray come in, sir. What a summer we're having. The heat is abnormal—not C@ONNIELOOKS (E(0)