At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

128 AT A GIRL’S MERCY. “T did not see it as I glanced over the columns this. morning. Butitis very sad. How it will grieve his mother.”’ She met his eyes with an unfathomable look in her own, and held the paper in her hands, that did not tremble in the least. “He was a pleasant friend, and we will all miss him, now that he will never come back.”’ She caught her breath here a trifle, but resumed as calmly as before: ‘““We all somehow have the idea that those we wish for will come back to us when the war is over, but I don’t know why we should, when there are daily so many falling. I wonder if his sister was near him at the last?’’ The man before her was amazed at her power of self command under circumstances so trying. He felt a renewed determination to win her by any means in his power. He would not lose in this game. He loved her fiercely at that moment. Nearly always she roused only wrath and the desire for revenge by winning her in spite of herself, and then proving to her that he was not one to safely scorh. But his face was as inscrutible as was hers, and the sun was shining and the birds singing softly in the boughs overhead. CHAPTER XIII. THAT WOUND A HEART. Nan even laughed before Howard Blake left her. She answered him as crisply as was her wont, and _ held the paper steadily, as though she were glad the news were no worse. Yet Over and over in ker E€omicbooks.co