A Struggle for a Ring — page 195: what you’re looking at

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

MADAME ROUBART’S ADVICE. 191 _ Once, during the first year of his absence, in an un- guarded moment he had sent her his photograph. It had happened quite accidentally; he had had some excellent ones taken, and they lay, carelessly enough, upon his writing-table. Without a moment’s thought, he placed one inside the envelope he was addressing to her; he never thought of the pain or of the pleasure it would cause; it was an act of simple indifference. ‘There was the envelope, there was the photograph; he sent them together, never dreaming of the rapture of happiness and of pain that picture would cause his wife. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that she had made that portrait her idol. She had it copied, and wore it by night and by day in a locket of gold; she slept all night with the locket clasped in her hand; she kissed the hand- some face as soon as she woke; she looked at it fifty times during the day, while the passionate love deepened in _ her heart, changing her rapidly from the innocent, simple, dreaming child to the passionate, tragic woman, who had no life out of hér love. How she worked, and toiled, and labored to make herself worthy of him—how she studied, and thought, and imitated! ‘‘Why,” they asked her, often—‘‘ why, Miss Derwent, do you wish to be so perfect in everything ?’ Why! She would look up with a gleam of wonder in her beautiful eyes. Why, for his sake, to be sure—to win a word of approval from him; to make him admire her; to fit herself to be, in some degree, a companion for him. To have won a word of love from him, she would have _ walked over red-hot plow-shares to her death. Everything went to feed this one wild, intense, passionate love, until it filled her whole heart, soul, and life—until she had no thought, no wish, no desire, no life beyond it. Gomicbooks