Laura Brayton — page 195: what you’re looking at

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

186 LAURA BRAYTON. Hawk at once went back, and Putnam, advanc- ing, took Laura’s extended hand, while he bowed low and respectfully to the lady. “You look pale and agitated,” said the lady. “Has anything happened?” “Nothing to affect your interests, madam. Buta sad occurrence,: which, while I have my life to thank for it, leaves-an icy gloom on my heart. A poor woman whom I was lately so fortunate as to rescue from death in a burning house, was killed but a few minutes since while saving me from an assassin’s knife. Failing in his object of destroying me, he drove his knife to the hilt in her body.” “He was one of Sharp’s tools?” “Undoubtedly. He escaped arrest at the time, but he is well known to the police, and he shall not escape if money can procure his arrest. And I find, young as I am, that if justice is blind, her officers are not, to the color of money, at any rate.” “Alas! that knowledge comes to young and old alike, if they seek for justice,” said the lady. “Laura has described to me the event of rescuing a woman and child. Was this the mother?” “It was, and to-night, with her dying breath, the poor woman confided her child to my care.” “It is a holy trust,” said the lady. “Qne who knows the history of our poor Laura there knows how hard it is for a little one to grow up without a mother’s care and love. And none but a mother may know the dreadful agony of leaving alone in the world the babe of her bosom. But she, at least, is beyond her pain. She cannot know the most ter- rible of all agonies, the separation in life from those we love.” Captain Hawk re-entered the room. comicbooks.co