At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

AT A GIRI’S MEROY. 141 quite yet. They are fighting for what they think is right as well as our soldiers are.”’ “Yes,’? Nan said, gravely. She let the fan fall in her lap, and folded her hands with intensity as she - added, with sudden fire: ‘‘Oh, I wish I were a man to fight them. I could give them the will and the manhood, anyway, and the truest side must win, and I am so sure ours is the truest side, and the winning will come if it is long in coming. All things do come if we wait.’? Then the fire died from her face and eyes as she leaned back among the cush- ions tiredly, and smiled a sad little smile, saying, slowly, with a quiver in her voice, ‘‘But it is so long we have to wait.’”’ Howard Blake could have found it in his heart to forgive her all the unkind speeches she had made to him, all the many unkind little acts she had been guilty of because of her dislike of him, when he sat with her intense face before him, and the quiver in the sweet, low voice. He would gladly have com- forted her had she given him the right. He would even have yielded some of his harsh plans that should make her his whether she would or no, but he could not do it with his present hope. And then —as he thought of it the old sinister smile lurked around his thin lips—he had gone too far to turn back one iota. She should give him her answer to- day, now, and should it prove other than the an- swer he would have, then the net of his plans should be drawn tighter about her, and her power to escape him gradually weakened. For win her he would, — by fair means or foul. He had not planned in what words he should tell her of his wish. He had deter- mined to tell her that he would win her, and that was all. That the words would come at the right GEomicbooks.co