Moths by Ouida — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

Fs A eae MOTHS. midst of it there came a sorrow to her that had in it something of remorse. The old Dowager Duchess at Bulmer died after a day’s illness—died in solitude, except for the faithful servants _about her—and was buried under the weird bent oaks by thé moor, by the northern sea. Vere lamented bitterly. ‘¢ And she died without knowing the truth of me!” she thought, with bitter pain; and there was no message of pardon, nosign of remembrance from the dead to console her. ‘‘ We are an unfor- iving race,” thought Vere, wearily. ‘‘I, too, cannot forgive. i can endure, but I cannot pardon.” : This loss, and the state of her own health, gave her reason and cause for leaving the world a little while. She remained absent while her husband waltzed with the Duchesse Jeanne at Imperial balls and winter fetes, and gavesuppers in the cafes of which the rooms were bowers of palms and roses, and the drinkers drank deep till the red sunrise. She remained in solitude in the vast, luxurious, carefully heated palace of the Zouroff princes, where never a breath of cold air penetrated. Her health suffered from that imprisonment ina hothouse, which was as unnatural to her as it would have been to one of the young oak trees of Bulmer Chase or to one of its moor-born forest does. Another child was born to her, and born dead—a frail, pale littie corpse, that never saw the light of the world. She was long ill, and even the tediousness and exhaustion of lengthened weakness were welcome to her, since they released her from the court, from society, and from her husband. When she was at length strong enough to breathe the outer air, the ice was broken up on the Neva, and even in Russia trees were budding, and grass pushing up its slender spears through the earth. The Duchesse de Sonnaz had long before returned to Paris, and Prince Zouroff had gone there for business. By telegram he ordered his wife to join him as soon as she was able, and she also traveled there with Madame Nelaguine when all the lilac was coming into blossom in the Tuileries and the Luxembourg gar- dens and behind the Hotel Zouroff in the Avenue de l’Impera- trice, ~~ <. A year had gone by; she had never seen the face of Correze. She had learned in mid-winter by the public voice that he had refused all engagements in Russia, giving as the plea the injury to his throat from :the’climate in past seasons, She-had seen by the public press that he had been singing in Madrid and Vienna, had been to Rome for his pleasure, and for months had been, as of old, the idol of Paris. ’ As she entered the city it was of him once more that she thought. : A flush of reviving life came into the paleness of her cheek, and a throb ef eager expectation to her pulses, as she thought thas once more in the opera-house she would hear that perfect melody of the tones which had chanted the Nuit de Mai. It was May now, ghe remembered, and it was also night with her, one long, dark, hopeless night. Me al 1 pele’ Y ; etn / Kae Ae : / , ‘ ‘ of) ; tk es 4 4 i Las : 4 {"\ eis as - a4 Z he » a DD 4 oe. § ee | My Ba a F w 4 ea s * ‘(4 alt By comicbooks.co