Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 171: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 163 more was he going to allow himself to commit any more! } He would swear it to her; that this cowardly one, more terrible than the preceding, should be the last. What had he thought, then? to whip this woman whom he loved more than his soul, more than his life! What had he done in that horrible moment with his reason, with his heart? Alas! what had he not suffered, when reflection, predominating over the tumult of his passions, had resumed its empire in his soul! Why had he not, in his despair at the crime committed, dashed out his brains against one of those trees, the witnesses of his odious cowardice? It was in the solitude of that sublime and imposing nature that he should have died; those magnificent trees, silent spectators of his guilt, would have erown and would have buried him under their branches, protecting forever this body purified by repentance. Shame seized him, remorse pursued him, he had not been able to resolve to leave that calming soli- tude. He had been afraid to re-enter this little town, where tattle would run quicker than light ning. Jealousy, despair, repentance, alternately created in him a terrible tempest which rent him. The whole afternoon he had wandered, like a soul in torment, and on his return he was obliged to renounce seeing Najeska Ivanowna! To see her alonea moment! to hear issue from her lips these precious words: “TIT am innocent—thou hast been unjust!” Oh! for this sentence he would have given ten years of his life. But no, they would not admit him to his wife’s chamber. Was she really so ill? or, fearing that he would indulge in a new paroxysm, had she ecomichbooks:.com