Lady Evelyn — page 251: what you’re looking at

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

244 | After ‘Twenty Years. own sake, will be discreetly silent, and I—I leave you to a vengeance mightier than any on earth. My civil rights I shall claim and take from you, and your daughter shall be my wife, and Countess of Clontarf—” He stopped abruptly. The man he addressed had slipped from his chair and fallen on the floor. The rector sprang forward and raised him up. ‘The Omnipotent vengeance to which Roderick Desmond had left him had stricken him down almost with the words. For the second time he had fallen in a fit of paralysis—a dreadful sight! CHAPTER XIII. AFTER TWENTY YEARS. Lady Inez Desmond lay long in that deep, death-like swoon. The evening shadows fell thick about them ere the great dark eyes opened to light and life once more. Her daughter hung above her; the gentle, lovine lios fondly kissed her own. With the first glance into that pale, young face, memory returned. Slowly and painful- ly she struggled up and gazed around. _ “Where is he?” she asked. “Was it a dream, Evelyn? Has my reason left me, or did I really see Roderick Des- mond—dead and gone twenty long years?” “You saw Colonel Drummond,. sweetest mother,” her daughter said, caressingly. “You saw the strange like- ness—the startling likeness—he bears to the lost lover of your youth. I, too, was struck by it the first moment we met.” “No, no, no!” Lady Inez cried, “it is no mere resem- blance. If I saw a living man, I saw Roderick Desmond in the flesh. Do you think there could be another man alive to look at me with his eyes, speak to me with his voice! J tell you I saw Roderick Desmond—the dead alive! Oh, my daughter, what if, after all those years that we have mourned for him as dead, he should still be alive? ‘Tell me,” she wildly cried—‘tell me, Evelyn, all you know of this man. Who is he?” | ; | : Lady Evelyn, very pale, looked her mother straight in the eyes. CE eee te Le ems Ga TO eNO OK ateO om cb