Moths by Ouida — page 102: what you’re looking at

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

Lo Sn MOTHS. ‘¢ And I say that I will not.” - They confronted each other; the girl’s face pale, clear, and cold in its fresh and perfect beauty, the woman’s grown haggard, fevered, and fierce in its artificial prettiness. ‘¢T will not,” repeated Vere, with her teeth closed.’ ‘‘ And my dead father would say Iwas right; and I will tell this man to- ~ morrow that I loathe him; and, since surely ke must have some pride to be stung, he will ask for me no more then.” ‘¢Vere! you kill me!” screamed her mother; and, in truth, she fainted, her pretty curly perruque twisting off her head, her face deathly pallid save for the unchanging bloom of cheek and mouth. It was but a passing swoon, and her maid soon restored her to semi-consciousness, and then bore her to her room. ‘What a cold creature is that child!” thought Adrienne, of Vere. ‘‘ She sees miladi insensible, and stands there with never a tear, or akiss, oracry. What it is to have been brought up in England!” Vere, left alone, sat awhile lost in thought, leaning her head on her hands. Then she rang and bade them post the letter to Bulmer—the dark and drearsome but safe and familiar home of her lost childhood. The letter gone, she undressed and went tobed. It was mid- night. She soon was asleep. Innocent unhappiness soon finds this rest; it is the sinful sor- row of later years that stares, witheyes that will not close, into the hateful emptiness of night. She slept deeply and dreamlessly, the moonbeams through the high window finding her out where she lay, her slender hmbs, supple as willow wands, in calm repose, and her long lashes lying on her cheeks. Suddenly she woke, startled and alarmed. <A light fell on her eyes; ahand touched her; she was no longer alone. She raised herself in her bed, and gazed with a dazzled sight and vague terror into the yellow rays of the lamp. ‘¢ Vere, itis I! it is I!’ cried her mother, with a sob in her voice. And Lady Dolly dropped on her knees beside the bed; her real hair dishevelled on her shoulders, her face without false bloom and haggard as the face of a woman of twice her own years. ‘‘ Vere, Vere, you can save me,” she muttered, with her hands clasped tight on the girl’s. ‘‘Oh, my dear, I never thought to tell vou; but since you will hear no reason, what can I do? Vere, wake up: listen. Jam a guilty, silly woman; guiltier, sillier, than you can dream. You are my childafter all, and owe me some obedience; and youcan save me. Vere, Vere, donot be cruel; do not misjudge me, but listen. You must marry Sergius Zouroff.” It was dawn when Lady Dolly crept away from her daughter's chamber, shivering, ashamed, contrite, in so far as humiliation and regret make up contrition; hiding her blanched face with the hood of her wrapper, as though the faint white rays of day: break were spectators and witnesses against her. Ver™iay quite still as she had fallen, upon her bed,-hber face ) : : “ : - ' 7 - . 1‘ . 4, gy te a ‘ FB. hy te) i vt ‘ a 5% fA, i . a { ‘4 ¢ aa ’ é r ee. {9 > i : cy Hh Ue’ , : : - ; iF aA ey iAwe ral y . a sul __ > ‘ “aye “a . i AD , a4 Joke Ue Vin) let he i