Laura Brayton — page 215: what you’re looking at

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

206 LAURA BRAYTON. revenge all the more intense, because it was secret. and deep. - When, through the private administration of drugs, the health of the young wife and mother be- ean to fail, by a physician bribed by him the sea- voyage was counseled, that, too, at a time when business complications had been purposely arranged to keep Luke Withers at bome. Then Captain Hawk, by heavy bribes, was en- gaged inthe drama. His ship was to be wrecked, the woman and child alone saved by him, if pos- sible, for future aims of the arch-plotter. _ Hawk carried out the plan partially, but led away by his own unholy desires, pretended to his em- ployer that the woman had perished also, while in truth he imprisoned her in an islet on the Florida coast, there to await his return, after he had deliv- ered the infant girl to Enoch Sharp. But the lawyer, as soon as the child was in his power, wished to bury these terrible secrets, and to make sure of Hawk, caused him, as he supposed, to be assassinated. But the latter escaped the doom intended for him. Infatuated with the beauty of Mrs. Withers, he returned to her and sought in every way to gain her love, telling her truly that her husband had gone mad at her supposed death, and, leaving his prop- erty and business in the hands of Sharp, had fled the country. Proof not only against the solicitations of Hawk, but powerful in maternal love, Mrs. Withers had finally succeeded in conquering the evil desires of the captain, and had enlisted him in a plan to pun- ish Sharp, and to regain her daughter and the prop- erty of her husband. Knowing the secrets, both comicbool < i + (% s TF «a4 ; ye bee is 4 A Pas ark yt & 2 re