Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 251 Se “[ will do anything! anything to break this in- famous marriage! this accursed union!” The empress’ rage was so great that it had been dangerous to utter a word tending to calm her or to excuse the king; were it not for that the prince would have been able to ask what there was so in- famous in the morganatic marriage of a widower with the woman that he loved, and in what he lacked more in respect to the dead queen than if he had been united, by policy, to a royal princess. He was regretting his precipitation now; for he realized that no one in the world could hinder the old empress from making a frightful scandal. Throwing her dignity to the winds. excited by fury, the empress precipitately opened the door and was going to rush out when the prince imperial seized her. <A veritable struggle ensued between them. His physical strength at last predominating over that of the old enraged woman, he constrained her to listen to him. The only coacession which he could obtain in the end was that the empress would not go herself to the King of Thessaly’s door, but that she would send his chamberlain, to tell him that he must immediately present himself to her. Ecomichbooks.com