At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

68 AT A GIRL’S MERCY. part of the night was passed, but as morning dawned, the terror and crying ceased, and she grew quiet from the very depth of fear. If she had done as her lover wished; if she had kept her own counsel, and gone alone with him and his friends, or if she had told only the two whom she felt so certain of, this terrible thing would not have happened to her and now to the other two, for, of course, all would be examined, and Nina, for one, she knew, would not lie to save herself, and confes- sion of the truth would mean death. Yet she could not have gone—she knew she could not have gone and left them without’a chance. No; she said it to herself even then, and somehow it gave her cour- age—she could not have gone without an effort for them also; she could not have stolen away to her happiness, and left them bound. : Die? Ay, she could die if she must, she need be no coward, though life was sweet to her, though life must be sweet in spite of its sorrows. Strange, she said to herself, smiling with an odd _ feeling that it was of some one else she was think- ing, for some one else she was deciding—strange what a hold life had on one in spite of the deadly struggle and bitterness. Beyond the ‘‘Valley of the Shadows” lay peace, and yet she clung with such pathetic tenacity to the hill difficulty of life, with the cruel burdens and the bitter lash of bond- age—clung to it, and life that was so sweet with a sweetness that crowded down the bitter. If death must come—well, death must come to all, but here on the threshold of life and only because she would be free, as God intended all men should be, and because she would‘help her comrades to a share of the happiness she hoped for. comicbc (o} Ss (eo) nm