Should She Have Left Him? — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

46 § SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? a suspicion of these troubles, and wooed and won me, the case would have been different—very different. So, she continued, with a charming air of enforcing a logical proposition, “if you were not to blame in coming to me, you are not to blame for the situa- tion in which we find ourselves. You say you have ruined my life. Whether you have or not belongs to another part of our talk, and will be answered when we have finished.” Distraught as he was, Trescotte did not fail to note, now that the deeper powers of her mind were called into play, how orderly and methodicat were Dorothy’s thoughts, “But,” she went. on earnestly, “assume for a moment that ruin has come to me, no one is to blame for it. It was an accident—yjust as the loss of our property or of our sight would be.” ‘“You are very generous,’ he said. ‘No,’ she replied promptly; “it is not gen- erosity, it is only justice, and no more than the law of the land would mete out to you. That is what Mr. Magrane says. And you say that it is only important to you as it takes me out of your life. So we can dismiss you from our talk.” “Then it all comes back to you-—your future— your ruined life!” he cried. “Yes; it all comes back to me,” she looked up into his face, smiling adorably. ‘I am ready to talk of my position. The first thing is, what is your duty to me.” “My first duty to you?” he repeated, somewhat CoOmicboolkk<s C@ 3