A Struggle for a Ring — page 295: what you’re looking at

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

A CRUSHED FLOWER. 291 Lady Ethel iooked up, with a little cry of dismay, never dreaming that it had been done on purpose. ‘*You have broken my flower, Miss Derwent! What will Lord Carsdale say ?” ‘‘Shall I go and find you another one like it?” asked Aulie. ‘“‘No; it would not be the same thing; it would ny have the same value. How did it happen?” She was half tempted to tell her, but that would be a base betrayal of the secret. Fortunately, Lady Ethel sel- dom waited for an answer. She took up the pieces with a pretty, caressing gesture, for which Ailie hated her. ‘You will wonder why 1 do not wear the flower you sent me,” she said to Lord Carsdale. ‘‘ Miss Derwent was very unfortunate—she broke it.” And looking at the flushed face of his young wife, it seemed to him that he understood perfectly how it hap- pened. No more was said about it, but Lord Carsdale thought a great deal. This was to be avoided; not for the whole world would he have Ailie grow jealous of peer- less Lady Ethel. ‘She is so imprudent,” he said to himself, ‘‘so impul- sive, that if ever she becomes jealous it will be the ruin of everything.” Every hour the unpleasant position in which Ailie had placed them both became clearer to him; he saw no way out of it, and every hour he grew more unhappy; for he realized the terrible fact that, do as he would—strive, struggle, fight, endure—there was but one way out of his difficulty, and that would be by trying to get a divorce from Ailie Derwent. It was a shadowy idea—he never even made it clear to his own mind; still it was there, and he fought hard against it. CS (ee) s ' 7 EComicboo