The Man in Possession — page 231: what you’re looking at

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

226 THE MAN IN POSSESSION. her throwing herself away on that little fool . . . it’s: perfectly maddening. What could have made her accept him after refusing him once? ... Heaven grant me patience! Who can understand the ways of women.” He moved on again. The lights burned dimly in the misty air. The sluggish river made a faint splashing noise against the bank. It had a strange, secret look, that dull-hued water, overcast by the faint, clinging fog; creeping away between its wall of stone and its low-lying mud banks, to some far-off and mysterious distance, where no eye could follow it. | The weirdness and chilliness of the scene oppressed him, Yet there was a certain dreary calm about it that in some way soothed the riot of fevered thoughts and furious rage. He brooded still over the riddle of Kate’s strange behaviour. He called her hard and unforgiving, but already the tide was turning in her favour once more. How could he tell what stress had been brought to bear upon her—in what way her ‘father might have drawn her into his scheme? He knew she did not love Sir Wilfred, that she had refused him once, and, with all her faults, she was not a fickle girl. ‘¢Qh, if I had only had a fair chance,” he thought, ‘only wooed and won her then at Croft when I had the opportunity. But Fate seems determined to be spiteful. She is always finding me out playing the fool. . . . Suppose she thinks I am one... . Per- haps she’s right.” That reflection had a cheering effect apparently. COMICOOOKSIEO