Mrs. Bob: A Novel — page 238: what you’re looking at

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

230 LOOKING BACKWARD. now to the bitter end. The results of his scheming are very evident; each of them has been led to believe the other dead, while I have lived all these years fully convinced that fate overtook my wife while run- ning away from me with another man, and my inno- cent child with them,’’ groaning. ‘‘I told you toa picnic, but it was more than that—she apparently fled from me.’’ ‘The old heathen,’’ mutters Bob, indignantly. “Vou can see for yourself how far and relentlessly the Gordon pride carried him. He has wrecked my life, but thank Heaven, I have learned to forgive even my worst enemy. I have no time to hate, but, now that the opportunity has come, must bend every energy to the task of learning the truth.’’ ‘“Good for you, Senator, and I am with you, heart and soul. What news for Mrs. Bob. She will love you even as I have done.’’ ‘‘Do you think so?’’ he asks, tenderly; ‘‘imagine the life I have led, Bob; a man who once knows the tender love ties of home, and has everything snatched from his grasp, is to be pitied indeed.”’ ‘You are right, my friend. But, tell me, what reason have you for thinking that this lady can be your wife ?”’ ‘“Hark, then. In the first place your friend de- scribed her as a lady of middle age, with gray hair, beautiful and sad. Ruth was lovely as a girl, and surely if this be my lost wife, she has had enough to make her sad. ‘Go a step farther—the old man had but two chil- dren, and Cornelius turned out such a scamp that he cComicbookseom