Out of her sphere - University Library

A BOLD GAME PLAYED IN VAIN. 65
over and over again. How many women
do you think would have waited as pati-
ently as I have done, when a word from
them would have exposed you ? Year after
year has gone on, and you have put me off
imder one excuse or another, and at last I
have had to bear the seeing you by that
false, vile woman, who called herself my
mistress, and pretending to court Miss Lis-
dale merely as a blind. I know it all
—
every one knows it—it is that which has
killed Mrs. Thornton— it is that which has
set the whole country talking of you and
her. They will have a little more to talk
of before long ;
even Miss Lisdale will have
her eyes opened at last ; when I tell them
who was last with that miserable woman at
the Fort, and show the letter that he wrote
to decoy her there."
It was her last card, and a bold one to play.
She had counted on the weak, inert nature
Audley Dale had shown as a boy, when he
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