Should She Have Left Him? — page 200: what you’re looking at

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

194 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? These thoughts weighed heavily upon a man of Tres. cotte’s make-up. What course was he to pursue? Existing, the boy was a bar to a reconciliation of Mr. and Mrs. Adams. His interview with Adams had shown how fond Adams was of Elsie. The boy—his boy—stood in the way. And he had ‘oct failed, amid his amazement at the revelation that he was the father of a lad eight years old, to notice the change in Dorothy’s tone and manner following that revelation. Wasthe unfortunate child to wreck the happiness of Dorothy and himself, as he had that of Adams and Elsie? What could he do to avert it? In fact, what could he do in any direction? Elsie loved the lad, perhaps all the more because he was so unfortunate and the cause of so much trouble. That was the way with mothers. Suppose Elsie were willing to give up the lad, and he took him, would not Dorothy look upon him from her stand- point, as Adams had from his? What happiness if, while the child was pure and innocent, the Almighty in his mercy would take the boy to himself. The thought did not seem impious, and it would be such - solution of the vexed problem. When Mrs. Adams had gone Dorothy brought Mrs. Trevor-Allen to Trescotte and requested him to tell their story. When he had finished, before any remark could be made by Mrs. Trevor-Allen, Dorothy spoke, her manner cold and her voice hard: ‘And the boy? You have omitted all mention of him.” Comicboolkks