The Man in Possession — page 226: what you’re looking at

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

LHE MAN [IN POSSESSION. 221 He stood mute and trembling ; the whiteness of his face rivalled her own. ‘‘ Was it because I was poor,” she went on, ‘‘ that you chose to play the spy... to add tenfold more shame and humiliation to the burden I bore?... Did you think I wasn't worth the ordinary courtesy a gentleman pays to—to even a barmaid? Did you think that lending money to my father to further your own schemes was an action likely to raise you in my estimation? You have lied to me—you have tricked me—you have deceived me, and you call it— love! Faugh! the very words from your lips are an insult... . Do you hear?—an insult!” ‘‘Hush!” he said. ‘‘ For God’s sake, listen.” ‘*T will not listen,” cried the girl passionately. ‘‘Nothing you can say in any way extenuates you. You have violated every principle of courtesy and hon- our and good faith. If—if you had wished to know | me, aS you say, you could have made my acquaint- ance as a gentleman does make the acquaintance of a lady. ... If—if you had cared for me ever so little in—in the way you say, you might have understood that I would not accept this masquerade as anything but an insult, for which its folly is any- thing but an excuse! ” ‘‘That—that was pure accident at first,” he stam- mered across the broken torrent of her passionate upbraiding. ‘And all your after conduct—is that accident? Is itany worthier, any better ormore excusable? If so, I fail to see it.” | His cheek flushed. Her words gashed him like ECOMNCE OOO SS) (SO