A Struggle for a Ring — page 297: what you’re looking at

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

A TRYING POSITION. 293 his seat, but the expression of wonder in Lady Ethel’s face restrained him; he sat down again while the brilliant beauty continued her conversation. Alice looked on the table; there was no sign of the book ; she went to the book-cases, but Dawley’s Poems seemed to have disappeared. Then Lady Ethel addressed her : ‘‘Have you lost a book, Miss Derwent?” she inquired. Then Ailie told her what she was looking for—and. why. Lord Carsdale laughed. | ‘‘That is so like my mother,” he said. ‘‘The only thing to be feared is that she will make the said quotations in the wrong place.” Then Lady Ethel remembered having seen the book on a certain shelf, and there Ailie found it. She held it fora few moments in her hand deliberating. ‘‘T hope,” thought Lady Ethel, ‘‘ that she is not- going to make her extracts here.” She was enjoying her conversation with Lord Carsdale and did not wish to be interrupted ; while Alice was deadly sick and faint with the bitterest pain of jealousy that could. burn or stab a human heart. She could not bear to see her husband’s handsome head bending over the golden hair of Lady Ethel. He was hers, her husband—not Lady Ethel’s; it was hard and cruel. She could not, she would not bear it. Her face flushed hotly and her lips quivered. She felt that she must cry out to him—that she must say: 3 ‘¢Turn those beautiful eyes of yours from him; he is not yours. Do not look at him or smile at him. Cease. to try to win him—he is mine, not yours; he can never be yours, for he has married me.” The impulse was so strong that she bit her lips until ‘ =e co =, | “comicbooks