A Struggle for a Ring — page 365: what you’re looking at

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

A SEPARATION DISCUSSED. 361 posed to go about as you will; I was only afraid that you might be seen coming in—good-night.” He did not love her, and he was trying to get a legal separation from her. He honestly believed that he loved Lady Ethel with all his heart, yet when he said ‘‘ good- night,” almost unconsciously he bent his handsome head down to her, and her white, tender arms stole around his _ neck. | ‘* Good-night, my beloved,” she said, gently, and then he kissed her white, beautiful face. ‘‘How cold you are, Ailie,” he said; ‘‘how deathly cold; your face is like marble, and your hands are even worse. Let me hold them in mine a minute; it is stand- ing out in the cold, dewy darkness that has chilled you.” ‘*No,” she replied, and then the next minute his arms were clasped round her, and her face was hidden on his breast. ‘‘T wish that I could die here,” she said, and then he recovered himself. He asked himself if he had gone mad. This was the wife he did not love, the wife from whom he was going to separate himself, whose heart he was breaking. ‘*Good-night, Ailie,” he said. ‘‘I wish you were not so tired and ccld.” ‘‘Good-night, beloved. I wish that I were colder still,” she replied. He stood at the outer door, waiting until she had disap- peared in the shadowy darkness, then he went out again, with heart and soul so rent and torn it was useless for him to think of sleep. | Ailie went quietly up the long, wide staircase; even if ony one should see her now it mattered very little—it could not matter less. Any one meeting her would think that Eomicboo S) (E(0)