Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 339: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. 331 _ This unforeseen and unexpected news struck the unfortunate Najeska Ivanowna to the heart. Re- covered from a long swoon, she remained during some hours in a frightfully weak state. Bitter reflections assailed her. “Perhaps,” she said to herself, “that if she had frankly confessed to her husband the nocturnal visit of Heilizenthal,” that which she had not done precisely in order to avoid a denouement such as that which had just taken place, and also because the murder once ac- complished she could not compromise the life of Heiligenthal, who, after all, had been her first lover, nothing of all that would have occurred. She would have, perbaps, momentarily van- quished the ferocious jealousy of her husband by her frankness, and would have proved her inno- cence to him. Ah! how the prince had looked at the blood which had flown upon the marble from the slight wound which she had inflicted upon Heiligenthal. On the other hand, at the time of the murder and even at present, she did not cease to ask herself who had killed Kassan, for she knew nothing of the tragical confession that the count had made to the prince. ‘But what is to be will be,’ said this super- stitious nature to herself. The prophecy made by the Bohemian in regard to that crown which eluded her even at the moment wherein she was putting it on, could not fail to be accomplished. After the death of the prince Najeska Ivanowna asked her- self what new misfortune would still befall her. This valiant nature, for whom afflictions had not yet ended was anticipating everything. At this certitude of being forever devoted to misfortune, that the death of the prince confirmed, a more in- <=) comicboo