Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 346: what you’re looking at

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

338 HER ROYAL LOVER. never a complaint. It would be much to be desired if all of us knew how to imitate her SUDTRIRSLI ES in the trials which Heaven may send us.’ “T do not say it, my sister, but that does not pre- vent her having done something very dreadful.” “ After what they say of her one may expect any- thing from her. It appears that unequaled in strategy, she has extorted the half of the king’s fortune. She would have completely ruined him, she would even have ruined the kingdom, if the Kmpress of Hindostan had not interposed. Yes, in spite of all the sorrow that I will experience in see- ing you no more lam almost happy at the idea of not having to encounter this bad woman.” Bounding under this infamous calumny, Najeska Ivanowna going to rush out of her retreat and cry: “You lie! your people lie! the king, the empress, all lie! I have taken nothing, desired nothing, I have refused all, even to the least present that the poorest suitor offers to his betrothed. I repeat it to you, it is an odious lie. I alone am outraged. I alone am the victim. I alone have the right to complain, to accuse!” But reason predominating over the afirntd under which she had bounded, she sorrowfully said to her- self : “What use to seek to justify myself? would they even listen to me? Am I not the holocaust of the king, of this king that they believe and that they cherish. Am TI not the immolation of this empress whose name all the people venerate? Of what avail would be my demands, my appeals to justice, for my right?” A lingering regard, filled with resignation, cast upon one of the Christs whose outstretched arms Gomichbooks.com