Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 269: what you’re looking at

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

262 BEAUTIFUL RIENZ1. lies so cold and forlornly calm before me now weighed it down into the hopeless melancholy which has oppressed us since we fled from America. She is gone now—oh, I weep when I dare to ask whither? <A desire to reveal something tortured her during the last hours of her life, but she could not speak. Will this attempt at the eleventh hour to render perhaps restitution weigh against her mountain of crimes? «“ My life has been sorely tried. I thank the Lord that I found comfort from heaven; and I tried to do my duty asa daughter. Shall I return to the only home I ever loved? Shall I be the bearer of the packet for Guiseppe Rienzi? Are the hearts of my dear ones still as warm and kind as when they had an Isolina? ‘‘And when I dare to think freely of you all my heart cries yes, athousand times. I will fly to you from my lone- liness and sorrow; if my poor changed face can bring you sunshine, you shall have it; if Gemma Lancinetto’s child can be nothing to you—but I have no fears, no doubts of your generous love. It will be sweet to depend on those whom I love and trust boundlessly. I will fold my weary wings in: my childhood’s home, and never leave it more. Peace at last, after long pain. Heaven bless my little foster-sister, and her true-hearted Ernest. I have not lost sight of you, though cruelly hidden myself. ‘* Farewell until a speedy meeting. As soon as the re- mains of this poor mother is buried, look for - lsoumwa.” We did not express our emotions in very eloquent lan- guage, my husband and I, but we knelt down side by side, and though our tongues were mute, our hearts were trans- latable to One who now had deigned to answer many tearful prayers. And after this the great wave of joy swept more gently over us. But it was hours after that we bethought ourselves of the second letter which had come for Mrs. Ernest Lindhurst, and which lay neglected among the tray of newspapers and peri- odicals. I opened it with reluctance, loth to abstract myself from the new-come joy; and when I surveyed the long, closely written sheets, and read the first sentence, I turned to the signature with incredulous surprise. “Lillia Meredith,” I ejaculated; ‘*‘ what can she have to- say?” _ ** Read it and see,” was Ernest’s suggestion. Gomicbooks:. co