The Price He Paid — page 278: what you’re looking at

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

GABRIELLE’S RETURN.—RETROSPECTIVE. 269 The golden stream of light faded gradually as the sun sank lowerand lower. A few solitary rays still strayed into the room; but, little by little, these too vanished, and the space was filled with a faint rosy shimmer, a reflection from the gorgeous evening sky without. Arno and Gabrielle paid no heed to it. He had drawn her to his side, and was speak- ing in low, earnest tones, but not of downfall or of danger. For them such things existed not; they . gave them nota thought. For the first time their hearts frankly met, no shadow, no misunderstand:+ ing interposing between them; for the first time they could be allin all to each other. Past and future were dissolved in this one consciousness; they loved, and in their love were infinitely blest. “Colonel Wilten waits on your excellency.” <A servant, coming in, made this dry, formal an- nouncement. Raven looked up as though he had been roused from a dream. He pressed his hand across his brow. “Colonel Wilten?’ he repeated slowly. “Ah, true. I had forgotten that.” Gabrielle’s attention was at once aroused. “Must you see the colonel to-night?” she asked, seized, as it were, by some vague foreboding. “The reception-hours were over long ago.” The baron stood up. The radiant expression which had illumined his face was gone now. “T expected him. There are matters it is neces- sary for us to discuss. Ask the colonel to have the kindness to wait for mein the drawing-room, I will be with him directly.” The servant withdrew. “T must leave you, Gabrielle. You little know what it costs me to part from you, even for a moment,” he said, in an agitated voice; “but the affair which brings Wilten to the castle must be settled at once, if I wish to have my evening free. Then we shall be alone together, and no one shall disturb us. Come, I will take you to your room.” He passed her arm through his, and led her through the library and across the corridor over to the opposite wing. A few minutes later he entered Eomicbooks (Ele)