Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 99 restrain; a violent desire to run to her, to question her, takes possession of him. After having searched all the rest of the apart- ment. Najeska Ivanowna directs her steps directly toward the place where he remains on the watch. Suddenly she espies a paper upon the floor which has hitherto escaped her observation; she utters a cry of joy and hastily springs forward to pick it up. She is saved! In a minute Mineleko’s resolution is taken. Noise- lessly he glides toward her. Absorbed as she is in the contemplation of her happy discovery, she does not hear him. Suddenly she feels a warm breath breathing on her shoulder chilled by the icy air of this room. Her light is extinguished, and a burning hand alights upon her arm and snatches the paper from her. The promptitude with which this was done, the terror which possessed her, paralyzes her strength; the cry which she wishes to utter remains strangled. Nevertheless, the power of action re- turns to her; she struggles, she seeks this invisible enemy whom she wishes to overthrow; but in the midst of the dark night it is only in groping that she can hope to seize him. Vain efforts! like a slimy reptile, he slips between her trembling fingers and her hands only beat the empty air. Her aggressor has gone then? No—he is still there, perhaps. In this absolute darkness, he 1s going to seize her, to assassinate her! Her teeth chatter, her limbs bend under her; what is going to happen to her? Like a statue of fright, she remains immovable, petrified; she tries to persuade herself that she has had a bad dream, that her timid imagination alone delineates; undoubtedly the midnight air penetrat- Eomichooks:.com