The Opposite House: A Novel — page 148: what you’re looking at

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

The Opposite House. 143 She stood before him in her pure, bright beauty, her eyes resting gently, yet mournfully, on his face. “Traugott!” she said, softly ; and the young man, as if utterly crushed, sank down on the bench, cov- ered his face with his hands and groaned aloud. The words she addressed to him were earnest and touching; they fell like refreshing dew upon his darkened soul; but he did not once look up at her until she paused. ‘Then, raising his pale face, he murmured : “Tam superstitious. That flower is lying deep in the lake, and [ cannot be happy without it. But I will seek for my white blossom, though I should descend into a watery grave.” He rose slowly, but Marie anxiously stepped be- fore him and, in an agony of dread, threw her arms around his neck. “No, I will not let you go to that flower!” Gerrald bent his head and gazed with joyful com- prehension into her tearful eyes. “Do you love me, then, Marie ?’”’ “Yes, I love you, Traugott,” she whispered, in half-stifled tones, “and therefore I must guard your life, that you may not destroy it with a blas- phemous hand. Your mother took your legacy from you, because you were no longer worthy of it, but she left open to you the path which leads upward | through expiation to the grave. If it is Heaven’s Comicboolk<s C@