A Struggle for a Ring — page 343: what you’re looking at

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

“7 WOULD DIE TO FREE YOU.” 339 or the sorrow that pursued him. Once he thought of fleeing; but flight, he said to himself, was the resource of a coward—he would never do that; even if he did, flight would not help him—he should take his difficulties with him; he could not run away from the consequences of his own folly. There was not a more miserable man in England than the heir of Roseneath that night. He felt like a man with a sword over his head—a man with a skeleton always by his side—a man who had before him a terrible alternative. Nor: was Lady Ethel much less puzzled. What ould that abrupt question have meant? No offer of marriage had followed it, or would follow it. No pleasure, no hap- piness—no expectation of anything of the kind followed it. Why had he asked her? She thought of every imaginable __ reason, but none satisfied her. She saw that she had been right in one respect; she had correctly imagined that he had a story—a mystery in his life—and the solution of that story was the reason why he had not asked her to marry him. Lord Carsdale could not decide when he was to tell Ailie of his decision. It was one thing to say to himself that he must break her heart; it was quite another to decide the day and the hour. He was struck one morning by her patient gentleness. The ladies were all in the morning- room, busy in discussing the dresses for a charade party, which the countess had decided on giving ; Captain Moore, Lord Carsdale, and one or two others were with them. Lady Waldrove had just received some intelligence that displeased her very much—it was the marriage of one of her relations, a pretty girl of nineteen, who had, to use my lady’s own expression, deliberately thrown herself away on a penniless but very handsome hussar. GEomichbooks.com