A Struggle for a Ring — page 381: what you’re looking at

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

A STARTLING ACCUSATION. 377 ‘* Not at all,” replied the maid; ‘‘ but she wished you to wait until she sent for you.” It was very strange; but Ailie was not distressed over it. The countess had all kinds of whims and caprices. ‘True, she had never seemed to take a fantastic aversion to her, as she had done to many others; but it was likely she might do so, ‘There was nothing for it but to wait patiently. She soon forgot all about the countess and her caprices in thinking about her husband and what he would say about her letter. ‘¢ He will not be my husband much longer,” she said to herself. Then one of the maids to whom she had been very kind came in to ask her to write a letter for her. From this maid she heard that Lord Carsdale had left the Abbey at five that morning, to take the six o'clock train to London. ‘‘There was nothing said of his going to London last night, was there?” asked Ailie, too much startled to reflect that she had no right to discuss his movements, ‘¢None,” was the answer; neither the grooms nor the © valet knew anything of it until they were called early in the morning. Ailie could put but one interpretation on it; she be- lieved that he was so delighted over her letter that he had no patience to wait another hour—that the very moment he had received her consent he had made up his mind to hurry to town and get the opinion he was so anxious to have. She said to herself that she was foolish to feel ag- grieved—that she might have known it would beso. But that did not prevent her from feeling most intensely grieved. It pained her keenly to think that he should have been in such a hurry to be freed from her—that, after receiving her answer, he had not waited above three or four hours. Gom (C JOO S im