A Struggle for a Ring — page 274: what you’re looking at

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

270 “MY LOVE IS MY TORTURE.” _ ceptible, and you were a pretty girl; I liked you, admired you, and felt like a kind, brotherly friend; I pitied you when I heard the doleful story of your life, and wished to give you one day’s happiness ; then, to save you from the consequences of my Quixotism, I made you.my wife. We were excellent friends, but I do not remember that either before or since I have ever said one word of love. I have never deceived you, never pretended anything I did not feel, never called myself your lover, or anything except your friend. Is it not so, Ailie?” ‘‘Ves,” she replied, wearily. ‘‘ You are right, and I am quite wrong. I have lived in a beautiful, vain, foolish dream ; you have awakened me; I thank you.” ‘Do not speak so sadly, Ailie. You can enjoy your- self very much; you can live in some pretty, lively place, and have all that you want.” She laughed, and the sound of that low, bitter laughter struck him like a blow. . “Yes,” she said, ‘Syou give me a stone when I ask you for bread; you can pierce me with sharpest thorns when I ask for a flower ; you can kill me with cold, cruel kindness, but you cannot make me happy. I can never be happy; the world is simply a mockery to me.” - ‘¢ And why?” he asked. She raised her face to his, and again the bright moon- light showed him its pale, passionate beauty, its tender eyes and sweet lips. ‘“Why?’ she cried ; ‘‘ because I love you and you do not love me; because you do not know—you do not love me; because there can be no pain, no torture on earth like that of an unhappy love. You know nothing of it— you cannot tell.” : ‘‘Do I not?” he said, quietly. ‘‘ Every heart knows its ™~ Re ad ; \ 5A comicbooks. . .-