A Heart's Bitterness — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

- (4 HEART’S BITTERNESS. ‘ig 125 _ was the Black Pool. Beside it stood a singular little build- ing of two stories, each of one room, with a balcony jutting over, the water. This building known as “The Earl’s Folly,” was gloomy and damp as its surroundings. Some- times for a decade no one entered ‘‘ The Folly,” and it was now falling into decay. ‘ a Pri — "Pa 4 Se we = Pe * +, Lee a. ow ae Pate . : 4 y « : a ‘4 + y Lf » | PAY F “4 , = PB ad ' “a, * ee 2 iy ee te 4 LY 4 a Prt’ > ’ we aA ce e i ty “ ty yo on oad ~ 7 y a ~ A Na lle ~ ie : 1 . LY ake « Yat bt MAL , ~*7 Fg) FAN ¥ Pan rz Print 4, pe on hy } “Wn ~~ 5 ue f . ‘ss ‘ ‘ “ei ; 74 VS SA, a (. it > * ‘ -% t, ‘ Such a gloomy, ill-omened place, suited the wretched — frame of Lord Norman Leigh’s spirit. Having rejected his wife’s advances, Leigh shut himself up in his retreat, sitting in the upper room of ‘The. Folly,” and moodily gazing at a spider weaving webs in a corner. | One minute Leigh planned a search for Edna; then he lost himself in what might have been; then he considered whether he should go to the Continent, to a long round of those disastrous, deadly green tables. He would have gone at once, only there he was sure to discover nothing of Hdna. Then he pondered whether he should take opiates and steep himself in wild unrealities. : In this dangerous loneliness and treacherous self-tempt- | ing he had remained over an hour, when he heard the lower door, which he had never found needful to lock, turn heavily on its hinges, and after alittle pause a step, the trailing of a gown, a woman’s foot upon the stair. re His first thought was that his wife had followed him to es her companionship upon him, and he sprang from his ounging attitude to close the door, which stood ajar, when it swung widely open, and on the threshold stood the fine, stately figure of Helen Hope, and her dark, handsome, fatal face turned to his own. : With a muttered curse, he sank back into his place and stubbornly fixed his gaze on the floor. For three or four minutes the two remained™in this posi- tion, Leigh not giving way so much as to move an eyelid. Then Helen crossed the room with a swift step, knelt before him, laid her arms across his knees, and, bending her face. to reach the glance of his eyes, said: ‘“Look at me, Norman! Speak tome! Smile at me! Touch your lips to mine! For the sake of mercy, love me, for I am the one woman inall the world who loves you!” “Leave me, girl!” said Leigh, angrily. ‘‘ With menthe ~~ question is not so much whether they are loved as whether they love. Do you fancy that I love your” (eto) ~ comicbooks.