The Opposite House: A Novel — page 273: what you’re looking at

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

268 The Opposite House. “ And why do you refuse the count’s hand ?”’ she asked. Then the ardent love inthe young girl’s heart no longer knew timidity or fear. Like a deep, long hidden fountain, which at last bursts all barriers and rises to the light of day, the confession poured from her lips, swifter, more jubilant, culminating in the rapturous avowal: “Ilove “zm alone!” And when the bonds were once broken, the seal removed from the timid lips, the shrinking child had no further thought of silence. Everything must be confessed, everything must ring in her mother’s ears; and Baroness von Rotterswyl listened with an aching heart to this sacred, long-repressed fervor of first love—this suffering and hoping, fearing and yearning, and mortal dread of her mother’s anger. And as her child’s arms clasped her neck so tenderly, as every word found an answering chord in her own heart, and long-buried memories of her youth awoke, the very last barrier of pride melted, the ice of the proud soul thawed under the fire of love which poured so resistlessly from the lips of her child. She clasped her hands in a swift battle with herself; her tearful eyes wandered toward heaven, as though she were bidding farewell to a long- cherished dream ; then she clasped her daughter to her heart in benediction, murmuring a short, almost incredible reply—that she should become the wife Comicbook<s