The Price He Paid — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

106 THE BARON’S DECREE. she pondered; and only when her mother called her did she start from her reverie and. hasten to the baroness’ side. Raven watched her as he went. His lips were firmly set, as though in repressed anger or pain, and a dark thundercloud lay on his brow. “T must know the truth,” he muttered. “But, after all, what will it amount to? Mere childish folly, some traveling episode invested by both with all necessary romance, and in the course of a few weeks to be utterly forgotten. No matter, I will take care that such looks are not translated into words, and that an end is put to the affair in time.” CHAPTER VII. THE BARON’S DECREE. The next morning broke gray and cloudy. It heralded in a wet, cold September day, which told unmistakably that summer’s opulent splendor was a thing of the past, and that autumn’s chill reign had commenced, A fine drizzling rain was falling; the mountains were shrouded in thick mist, and in the castle garden the wind was chasing the first leaves from the trees. Baron von Raven sat alone in his study. <A middle-sized room, with a lofty ceiling and one large bay window framed in a deep recess, this study certainly did produce a gloomy impression. It was not a comfortable room to dwell in, nor one suited to rest or repose. Everything in it told of work—of grave, incessant occupation. Raven generally got through a good deal of busi- ness in the morning hours; but to-day he sat at his writing-table, resting his head on his hand, and casting not so much as a glance at the pile of letters and memorials, of reports and schedules, before him. His countenance wore the pallor born of a sleepless night, and its austerity of expression was more striking than usual; otherwise his features were as of bronze in their perfect immobility.” Immersed in somber thought, he did not even look Gomicbooks (E(0)