A Struggle for a Ring — page 357: what you’re looking at

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

“7 CANNOT SIN FOR YOU!’ 353 ‘* Ailie,” said Lord Carsdale, ‘‘I have asked you to meet me here to-night because I am going to put my life, more than my life, in your hands, I confess to you that I love Lady Ethel—that from all bs mers she is my one chosen love, and she loves me.’ She raised her hands again with a low moan. ‘‘Be pitiful to me,’ she said; ‘‘I cannot hear such words and live. You have no mercy, Lord Carsdale.” He was silent for a few minutes; then, very gently and very kindly, he said: . ‘If you really wish me to say no more, Ailie, I will be silent; but I prefer to speak. It pains me more to speak than it pains you to listen.” | ‘Tell me all,” she said; ‘‘I must hear it some time, why not now? You love Lady Ethel, and she loves you. But for the barrier between you—my most wretched self— you would, oh! so gladly, ask her to be your wife. Is it so, Lord Carsdale?” ‘Yes Ailie, it is so; and that brings me to the object I had in asking you to come here. I want to ask you, if I can obtain by any means a legal sep- aration, a legal dissolution of our marriage, will you consent?” With a wild cry she fled from him, and flung herself, with her face down, on the soft, thick grass. ‘¢My God! my God!” he heard her cry. He could not see in the darkness, but he hastened to the spot whence the sound came. He went to her; he would fain have raised her frown the ground and have _ shielded the trembling figure in his arms. He did not love her, but he would fain have kissed the tears from her face; he did not love her, but the sound of those terrible Gomicbooks (ee)