A Gentleman from Gascony: A Romance of the Huguenots — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

So A GENTLEMAN FROM GASCONY. brasure of a window, where there was a broad seat, screened by heavy curtains which fell from the ceiling to the floor. Seating herself here, she motioned the new equerry to a place by her side, an invitation Raoul was nothing loath to accept. By this time he had recovered much of his customary equilibrium, and his first words were an outpouring of thanks for the service she had rendered him, an out- burst which Gabrielle gently checked. “Indeed, it was nothing,” she said. “I beg you to speak no more.” | “ But I must.” “Then if you must speak,” she answered, with a laugh and glance from beneath her heavily fringed eyelids which set the young man’s heart on fire, “tell me of yourself, chevalier, of your past, of your hopes——” “My past does not exist, mademoiselle,” interrupted Raoul, eagerly. ‘As for my hopes, my ambitions, they are so great, so foolish that my heart would scarce dare to say them to my reason.” The violet eyes were lowered now, the fair head was bent, and a faint blush tinged the perfect oval of the cheek half turned away from Raoul. “I—I do not understand, monsieur.” “ May I make you understand?” But to the eager question there was no answer. Gently, timidly he took one of the little hands that lay idly in her lap. She did not draw it away. Emboldened, Raoul continued in a voice low, but thrilling with passion: “Would you know the one hope of my life, the star on which my envious gaze is fixed? ’Tis you, Gabrielle, you! You whom I loved the first moment I saw you, GComicbooks (E(@)