Stella Rosevelt — page 305: what you’re looking at

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

“7 LOVE HIM STILL.” 299 and I wish that you had never spoken the words which you have to-night; for I know—yo0z know, that you could never be satisfied to take any one to your heart who was always turning from you to another, who, although she knew she was loving unworthily, would not yet have the power to keep her affec- tions from straying from you, and who could not keep her vows of allegiance to you, for such vows, if spoken, would be but mockery. Mr. Meredith, you could never be satisfied with such a wife as that,’ she concluded, in a voice which shook with emotion. ‘*No, Miss Gladstone,” he answered, sorrowfully. ‘‘I love you too fondly, too devotedly, to be content with anything save an affection as strong and true as my own. But,” with a note of earnest appeal in his tone, ‘‘could I not win you by and by? Could I not teach you to love me by proving to you that I am worthy of your love?” Star shook her head sadly. ‘‘T know that you are worthy at this moment,” she said. ‘‘I have the deepest respect for you, and value you as a friend; but nothing—no one can ever win the love which I must always bear for Archibald Sherbrooke. He has broken my heart and ruined my life; for I can never be the wife of any worthy man, since I will not live a lie. Ican never have a home of my own; I can never have those sweet domestic ties and duties which other women have; I can only try to do my duty by the dear old man who is so fond of me while he lives, and, after that, live out my lonely life with what patience and courage I can,” she concluded, with such a pathos that the young man for the moment forgot his own sorrow and disappointment in pity for her. ‘‘Where is he—where is this coward who has so imposed upon you, ruined your life, and proved faithless to his troth? Tell me, that I may go and brand him the knave and villain that he is!” Ralph Meredith cried, in hot indignation, Gomicbooks (E(0)