Should She Have Left Him? — page 224: what you’re looking at

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

218 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? demar’s man, was aware of the presence of La Hoyle. She ordered one servant to procure her breakfast, another to announce her arrival to Mr. Waldemar, and yet another to prepare a suite of rooms for her occupancy in another part of the house, forbidding all to enter the rooms she had just left. Waldemar, who was in his bath, received the announcement of his wife’s arrival with alarm. It was awkward. He awoke La Hoyle hurriedly and hid her in his own apartments, and hastened in bath- robe and slippers to detain his wife until the room could be restored toa semblance of order. He would have embraced Hilda in his nervousness, but she put him aside impatiently. She was calm but con- temptuous. She made no reference to what she had seen. He asked when she had arrived; she told him, and of the incidents of her trip. She was almost gay in her recital. But it was the gayety of hysteria. Waldemar, convinced that his wife had discovered nothing, yet wondering at her manner, returned when he thought it safe. As he ascended the stairs he planned to get La Hoyle out of the house unob- served, and he cursed his own weakness that had made him yield to the wild and imperious caprice of La Hoyle to be entertained in his house in his wife’s absence and to her arrogant insistence to occupy his wife’s quarters. Waldemar was ruled by La Hoyle. Subdued by her charms, he was enslaved by fear of her temper. Comicbooks.c© 3