The Bride Elect: or, The Doom of the Double Roses — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

THE BRIDE ELECT. 151 heart, break not yet. Oh, blinding eyes, fail not for one sweet moment, for is not this, once more under heaven, lost Glencora? | She gazes at his entranced face, his thin, sorrow-bleached face, once so comely; his rapt eyes dwell on her own, and she stands confused, with wistful silence. Will she breathe no little word to this old time love, to teach him she is noble still, and faithful to her vows? Her hand is stealing to her companion’s arm; she turns her lovely face away in sore perplexity. Will she leave him so? ‘“‘Does Glencora remember me no more?” whispered Alexander, with parched lips. His sudden gesture detained her more than his words. She could scarcely have heard them. Alexander had started to his feet, and leaned trembling against the yew, tall, feeble, and impassioned. «Are you in trouble, sir?” replied the lady, sweetly, fearlessly retracing her step, and drawing her mobile-faced friend with her. Alexander was leaning heavily on his staff, and it trem- bled under his hand. He read the imperious mark of seem- ing unconsciousness, and a cry broke from his outraged soul. “©Qh, Glencora!” wailed her ruined bridegroom. She grew pale as death; her lustrous eyes were blinded with tears; her perfect lips contracted in a spasm of pain; her exquisite countenance faded from radiance to sharp dismay; the mask was dropped; another woman stood be- fore him. | Then sudden amaze overspread the face of Alexander Buccleugh. He bent forward, and searched her orient eyes, her magnificent braid of jetty hue, her full, commanding figure, and bewilderment took the place of uncertainty. “Ts this Glencora Calvert?” cried he, wildly. ‘In Heaven’s name, speak to me!” | ‘¢No, 1am not Glencora Calvert,” she replied, in a trem- bling voice. ‘‘I am Rosecleer Strathmore, married to Lord Audley Tresilyan.” The delicious gladness lost from her mellow tones, the rich carmine chased from her rounded cheek, she eluded the lover’s recognition still further ; the impalpable vail which the captain had observed thrown over the vivid dis- play of feeling on Glencora Calvert’s features seemed now Gomichbooks,co