The Price He Paid — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

154 THE ICE BEGINS TO THAW. you. ‘Ihave given my word to another.’ A little while ago it was, ‘I love another!” The observation must have struck home, for Gabrielle’s face was suffused with a deep crimson blush, and she evaded a direct reply. “ Albert von Wilten was an object of indifference to me before,” she answered; “since I have found out that his suitis to be pressed upon me, I have taken a dislike to him. I will never be his wife.” The baron drew a long deep breath which seemed to expand his chest; but he replied, in the icy tone he had maintained throughout the conversation: “T shall neither compel nor persuade you to make achoice. If, indeed, you are firmly resolved to refuse young Wilten, it will, no doubt, be better that his proposal should not be made. I will give the colonel to understand that there is no hope for him. It shall be done to-morrow.” Raven leaned back in his seat, and the former silence set in again. Gabrielle nestled more closely into her corner; she, who in the old days could not have sat for the space of a quarter of an hour with- out breaking forth into a flow of merry chatter. now showed no inclination whatever to renew the con- versation. Neither the flattering homage paid her by the young officer, nor the thought of her absent lover, had had power to scare away the one remembrance which by degrees was usurping absolute sway over her mind and feelings. It was as though some sorcerer’s spell had cast the young girl’s whole nature into bonds. The old merry light-heartedness, the willful high spirits, the childish caprices—all ~ these had vanished, and in their place had come dim, problematic sensations more akin to pain than pleasure; aconstant flux and reflux of emotions which Gabrielle did not understand, but which troubled her exceedingly. She still wrestled half- unconsciously against this dread unknown; for as yet she did not divine, would not divine the nature of the peril which menaced her youthful attach- ment and George’s happiness; she only felt that Eomichbooks.com