The Price He Paid — page 177: what you’re looking at

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

168 HIS FIRST LOVE. “And will you leave me without giving me an answer? Am I still to live on, doubting and fearing lest that other should come between us again? You shall go, but speak first the one word I long for. It will take but a second to say it. Only one word, ‘yes!’ 1 will not keep you longer.” “Give me till to-morrow,” the girl besought with piteous, pathetic entreaty. “Do not ask me to de- cide now, do not force my consent from me. Give me till to-morrow, Arno, I implore you!” A flash of joy lighted up the baron’s features as, for the first time, he heard her pronounce his name without the adjunct of that formal word which re- called the relation and the guardian. Quickly and fervently he pressed his lips to her brow. “It shall be so. I will force nothing from you. I will. believe the language of your eyes alone, and content myself with that. Until to-morrow, then, for one short night, farewell, my Gabrielle!” He waiked with her through the adjoining room to a door which opened on the corridor, and the young girl went hastily out. Before she had reached the end of the passage, a bell sounded in the baron’s study, the signal for the courier to appear. Gabrielle shut herself in her own room. As yet, the decisive word had not been spoken. but her choice was already made. The hours she had just lived through had broken down the bridge connecting her with the past—there couid be no going back now. If George himself had appeared before her to assert and to maintain his rights, it would have availed nothing; it was too late—he had lost her. Arno Raven had drawn the girl’s whole soul to himself ; there was no room in her heart now for another. Ceorge’s image never once rose before her. Even during her sleep her brain was busy with the events of the last few hours, which passed in a strange fan- tastic medley confusedly before her. | One single figure occupied the foreground. Inter- woven with the thought of him came the memory of that drive through the darkening twilight of the autumn evening. She saw it all; the varied land- scape with its misty outlines; overasky charged Gomicbooks (E(0)