A Heart's Bitterness — page 127: what you’re looking at

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

A HEART'S BITTERNESS. 119 They were gone. Around Violet Leigh the summer day grew dark. ‘l’o hide from every eye she fled into the park, to a little hidden covert that she loved. She lay there, her face buried in the green moss. Some one, hurrying madly eae almost trod on her prostrate form, yet did not see er. : It was Lord Leigh, blind with wrath and passion, com- — ing from-Rose Lodge. where he had been infuriated to fin Edna gone, leaving no address. . : Len. minutes later, a step that had no sound came over the mosses, and a hand touched the shoulder of the pros- trate Violet. 3 It was Helen Hope. CHAPTER XXXI. “‘T BOW TO MY FATE.” pst ‘‘ Why are you here?’’ cried Violet, angered and ashamed that any eye should witness her secret grief and battle. ‘‘ Do not be angry with me,” said Helen, sitting down by her, and taking her reluctant hand. ‘‘I would like to comfort you. Do not mourn over a trifling quarrel; these things often happen, and are next day forgotten.” ‘*What do you mean?” said Violet. ‘‘I have not quar- reled. IJ never quarrel.”: | Violet tried to rise and go back to her home and her guests. Helen’s words had stopped the current of her woe and tears, not by consolation, but as a sharp frost stops the welling streams of the spring-time.” ‘¢ Don’t go,” said Helen, holding her fast. ‘‘I did-not mean to offend you. My inference that you were crying over a quarrel was most natural, as I saw your husband going away from this little lover’s nook with a black cloud on his face.” ‘*My husband! He was not here.” | ‘‘ Pardon me; he was—I saw him. I could have touched him.” «¢ But he has gone out from breakfast—on business.” “Oh! So? Then perhaps it was not you with whom he quarreled, and you did not cause the black cloud.” ‘‘ You always puzzle me,” said Violet, fixing her ingenu-— Comicboo Ss c wy" ” ae