Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 289: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 281 not a murmur came to betray the tumult of her soul; a livid pallor spread over the weary features of the young woman alone revealed the combat which was taking place within her. Desiring to distinctly emphasize all her contempt for this new insult, she contented herself by respond- ing with a pencil which she had always about her. With a firm hand, that nothing more could agitate after this, she wrote on the reverse of the message: “The king’s wife, not selling herself, refuses the infamous bargain; she will assert her rights, and will struggle to maintain them. This is the irrevo- cable response which she transmits to the Sovereign of Thessaly.” And each word, in order to make them compre- hend that she would remain inflexible in her resolu- tion, she underscored three times. Eomicbooks.-com