The Price He Paid — page 281: what you’re looking at

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

272 GABRIELLE’S RETURN.—RETROSPECTIVE. The baron’s lips twitched, but he could bring him- self now to speak the word which was fraught with such profound humiliation. “Dismissed!” repeated Gabrielle, “without your seeking it? Why, that is % “An insult,” concluded Raven, as she hesitated. “Or a condemnation, as you like to take it, It is usual, if only for appearances’ sake, to allow a fallen man the privilege of retiring; but even this favor has been denied me.” “And what will you do now?” asked Gabrielle, after a pause. “Nothing,” replied the baron, coldly. “My public career is atanend. I shall go to one of my estates in the country, and: there—live on.” “Will that be possible to you, Arno? You once told me that to work and to rule were as the neces- sary conditions of your being, that you could not endure an aimless existence, the monotonous round of an every-day life.” . “] shall learn to endure them perhaps. One-has so much to learn in this world. At all events, I must try.” “ And I shall go with you,” whispered Gabrielle, with the fervor of a great love. “I shall stay with you, always and always.” “Yes, always.” Again Raven smiled, but he avoided meeting Gabrielle’s eye. He put his arm rcund her gently, and drew her to the seat near the fountain. Arno sat fora while silent by Gabrielle’s side. The great peace surrounding him _ soothed his weary spirit after all the tempests, all the din of the last few months. In his heart, too, the storm had spent itself. So long as it had been possible to fight, and to defend himself, he had remained in the arena, steady, strong, and to all appearance unmoved. How it had really been with him during that terrible time when the two ruling passions of his life, pride and ambition, had been daily wounded, racked by a thousand mortifications, he alone knew. Now the battle and the strife were over, and the calm of a final, irrevocable resolve Gomicbooks (E(0)