The Price He Paid — page 273: what you’re looking at

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

264 GABRIELLE’S RETURN.—RETROSPECTIVE. room, drawing a deep, deep breath, as though a load had fallen from him. Then, with a rapid, steady step, he walked away in the direction of Colonel Wilten’s house. . OHAP UW Tt 2X Xa. GABRIELLE’S RETURN.—RETROSPECTIVE. It was afternoon now. Baron von Raven sat at his writing-table, engaged in looking through his papers. Hor some time past, his testimentary arrangements had been made; but there was. still much to set in order. Colonel Wilten had promptly responded to the call made upon him. Though he no longer considered an alliance with Raven’s family desirable for his son, the constraint and coolness which had lately, since their explanation, existed between himself and the baron, had been an- noying and painful to him; and he seized with alacrity this occasion of rendering the latter a ser- | vice. He. promised to settle all the necessary de- tails, and to come round himself, and report as to -what had been agreed upon regarding the duel, which was, if possible, to take place early on the following morning. | Raven had just finished a letter, which he folded and addressed to “Doctor Rudolph Brunnow.” The lines on his gloomy brow grew deeper still, as with sure and steady strokes he traced the name on the’ aper. “Would that I could have spared you, Rudolph!” he muttered. “The remembrance of this fatal hour will be with you to your dying day. I know it—but there was no alternative.” He laid the letter aside, and took up the pen; but this time it was less obedient to the hand that wielded it. Some minutes elapsed before he wrote the first few lines; then he stopped suddenly—began anew—hesitated once more, and. finally tore up the sheet. Why leave a farewell, every word of which must be barbed with bitterness? The letter would Gomicbooks €o