A Struggle for a Ring — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

ee an | te yee ow a eS teue 7 4 x "Ada * wen *oa ™» eae, ae ‘ > i 8 A BRIDE’S LETTERS. 49 think little of that; it was no unusual thing for him to absent himself for a few weeks—they thought nothing = — & of it. ‘‘Now,” he said, with a sigh of unutterable relief— ‘‘now we are free, and all is safe. I am quite certain that no one will ever suspect our secret. Your uncle never knew that we saw each other; he will never dream that Mr. Nelson and Lord Carsdale are the same people. All will go well, Alice, I prophesy, and in a year’s time, when I have broken it to them quite gradually, I shall be able to take you home. They will be quite surprised to see such a lovely Lady Carsdale. We may forget our diffi- culties now, and think of Paris. You shall go through France to Switzerland; you will enjoy that, Alice.” They were like children, with a vast, untried world before them. She thought him the greatest hero that the world had ever seen, the grandest of men—she could im- agine no one more noble; and he had something of the same idea himself—he really did think that he had acquit- ted himself like a king. So they went off into a fairy- land of their own. »Lord Carsdale had spoken the truth when he said that he had no great rapture of love for his wife. He did ; not profess to have fallen passionately in love with her, although he had liked and admired her very much; but Alice worshiped him. It was all wonderful to her, as though she had lived in the olden days, when people wor- shiped gods and goddesses, and a young god had stepped from his high estate to marry her. The letters created great excitement—not i in the eourtly halls of Roseneath; there it was looked upon rather as a matter of course, if the young heir chose to go abroad for a few weeks. It was quite right, no one CS (€| @) (E(o) mn G JOO