Should She Have Left Him? — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

EVOLUTION. 47 bewildered and taking refuge in a commonplace. “Tt is to see that you are shielded from misappre- hension as to our relations.” A shade of disappointment flitted over Dorothy’s face. It was not the answer shedesired. Trescotte noted it, without understanding it. “And what else?”’ she demanded with a sugges- tion of that imperative manner which he had found so charming in the days of their courtship. “And to secure your happiness,” he answered. “That is better. And how is that to be secured ?” 7 Trescotte was not so ready with the reply. It was so easy to say what should be done, and so hard to suggest the means. She waited fora reply. “Well,” he said after a little thought, “your position is, that you have lived with me as my wife, though not wedded. You entered the relation under the sanction of law and church. The world knows that. Therefore up to this time, it cannot blame you. But now you have knowledge that I was not free to marry you—that you could not enter into the relation of wife to me. Therefore, every moment spent with me after that knowledge will lay you open to censure—to the world’s condemnation.” “Tn short,” she said, forcing the conclusion he avoided in terms, “ up to the present moment I am an honest woman, but if I spend another night with you | will be a woman with a lost reputation.” Trescotte turned his head away in: deep pain, Comicbookks C@ 3