Stella Rosevelt — page 206: what you’re looking at

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

ait STAR'S DETERMINATION. this evening I did denounce him asa traitor. It seems that he has volunteered explanations to suit himself to Mr. and Mrs. Richards, and I decline to go further into particulars with them. 1 have no desire to blight Miss Josephines prospects in life, and I wish her all joy with her high-born and honorable lover.” Pen cannot portray the scorn which pervaded those last words, ringing out so clearly, so scathingly that Mrs. Richards’ cheeks burned and her ears tingled; fer this was the man—if he really had been the traitor which she wished to make him appear—whom she was using all her arts to secure for Jose- phine’s husband “TJ am amazed—I cannot understand!” Mr. Rosevelt re- peaied, with a troubled face. He believed Star to be as pure- -minded and as innocent of wrong as a little chiid. He had been convinced from what had transpired on the previous Saturday that she loved Archibald Sherbrooke, and not knowing that he was also Lord Carrol, he, of course; was completely puzzled over the mystery. ‘‘] do not see how you dare look any respectable person in the face, and confess what you just have, without seeking to clear yourself,” retorted Mrs. Richards, sternly. ‘* You are com- promising your character in the most wretched manner. What can I believe of you—what can any one believe of you, if you own to having been upon such intimate terms with a man of such standing as Lord Carrol, while he is here as the acknowl- edged suitor of my daughter?” ‘The very worst that you can believe, madam,” Star re- turned, calmly, and meeting the woman’s eye fearlessly, but with a look which made her quail in spite of herself, ‘‘can only serve to compromise the man, whose favor and title you appear so anxicus to secure, more than it possibly can me. Notwithstanding waatever claim I may have supposed myself to Gomicbooks (e(e) =}