Should She Have Left Him? — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

30 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? The recognition of this and the mockery of sym- pathy silenced Mr. Magrane.- Yet he felt that the man who sat so rigid and motionless must be stirred into action, so he finally determined to tell Trescotte the story as told him by Adams, believing that it must quicken the stricken man into thought. He began, but apparently without securing Tres- cotte’s attention. From this recital it appeared that Adams, less than a year previous, had learned that the civil magistrate who had married Elsie Hallock and himself, onthe morning of their elopement, had been removed from office for misdeeds the day previous, and therefore had no authority to perform the function. Whether he was aware of it at the time did not appear, but a somewhat languid conscience had, after the lapse of eight years, moved him to go to Adams and tell him the truth. Magrane was disposed to believe that it was less a matter of con- science than a belief, on hearing that Adams and Elsie were separated, that his information would have value to Adams and consequently money value to himself. The separation was a fact. Though Adams had condoned the five months Elsie had lived with Trescotte, when Elsie’s first born came into the world, and its paternity in the nature of things must be ascribed to Trescotte, those five months rose up between Elsie and Adams to the destruction of their domestic peace. When Adams and her father, who had in time become reconciled to his son-in-law, quarreled over a joint investment, Comicloo C@ 5} SS