A Heart's Bitterness — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

+> ty ety ete = ace “eg ~ * « 2? of’ ~_ heerr ” + 7 * . - +} ’ ij y- aT LY 4 > +e 130 4 HRART’S BITTERNESS. One day, after hours of pacing up and down the upper room, he flung himself upon a low lounge covered with leopard skins, and slept. He woke, roused by a light touch on his brow. ‘The touch mingled with his dreams. «‘Kdna,” he said, ‘‘ Edna, have I found you?” Then his eyes opened, and he lay looking wonderingly. | - into the face bent over his. «* No, no, you have not found Edna—you will never find her—she has another lover; but I have none but you. It is I—Helen. Say you are glad to see me, Norman!” ‘Here again! You haunt me, like the ghost of a crime!” “And am I not such to you? Was it not a crime to arouse all the love of a passionate, repressed heart that had never loved before; and when I adored you, to fling ali my | devotion back in my face with cruel mockery?” ~ © Love goes where it is sent,” said Leigh,-pushing her from him and rising up. You seem capable of doing any- thing to secure me; and you should understand how I would have done anything to secure Edna. For her I sought you, as my only avenue to her. You were blind. in- deed not to see from the first that I had no serious inten- tions toward you.” | ‘“Why should I see that? Am I not accomplished be- yond most women, and does not my glass tell me I am handsomer than most?” | _** No doubt; but remember your birth. Who and what are you to mate with a Leigh?” ‘“‘Have a care, Norman. You fling my birth in my face; has it not stung me with scorpions since ever I knew how and why I differed from other people? Do you not know that in women, such as I am, love has a twin sister called hate, and devotion has another side—even revenge. Who and what are you, to boast over me? What blood was your mother, pray tell me?” ‘““ Honest, at least, and her father an English officer, her mother of a family of rank. Silence, girl—am I to justify my lineage to you, a foundling?” Helen sprang to her feet, white with fury, and a scream of rage, a mad, inarticulate cry passed her lips. ‘J will bring your accursed pride to the ground!” she said, stamping with frenzy. <I will drag you down! I have been searching out the history of your family. Your mother was married before she married Lord Leigh!” comicbooks:co