Thrice Lost, Thrice Won — page 179: what you’re looking at

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

x x i op 174 _ The Lost Heir. eiye He laughed a harsh, strident laugh, and his pis face looked unutterably haggard and bitter in the moon:stght. “I was mad,” Leonie said, with a sob. “I have repented. Oh, forgive me, Alwyn! You don’t know half my misery!” “Do I not? And yet, perhaps not, with old Rutherford for your husband. You have something that does duty for a heart then, Leonie, under four red velvet bodice! And you might safely have waited for me, and not starved on bread and water in a garret, after all. The year of proba- tion expires next week, and Robert Bartram has not yet turned up. In six days more I claim my dead uncle’s for- ‘tune—that fortune which would have made you my wife— -. do you hear, Leonie?” passionately—“‘my wife! had I inher> _ ited it a year since. You might have waited!” ee . She covered her face with her hands, sobbing impetuously, _ her tears falling like rain. She did repent; she did love him; how fiercely only her own undisciplined heart knew. — “Spare me!” she cried. “Have a little mercy, Alwyn Bar- tram! When I think of what we are, what we might be, and that it is all my fault—mine—I feel as though l were going mad.” 4 He drew her sundaes to him; she \ookeed up in his face ; through her flowing tears. She ‘had the good fortune, this -)4 matchless Leonie, to Le one of the few women weeping does not disfigure. He caught her and kissed her like a man insane. oe — a 2. ow “Mad!” he eried. “You ie driven ‘nie ed with your | fatal beauty! We must part, Leonie Rutherford, or—I shall | be a greater villain than ever earth held before. Go! leave an me, and let us never meet again!” a “Alwyn,” she said, trembling, frightened, yet fascinated— “aie “Alwyn, listen to me!” : 4 But he stamped: his foot and turned reasline away. _ “Go!” he thundered, “while I am able to say the word. Estella Mallory’s husband and William Rutherford’s wife must never meet again.” He swung round as he spoke and left her. She:stood a moment, then flitted after him—off the balcony and out of sight. and Estella! She sat where she had sat ‘when they ap- peared—rigid, moveless, colorless. She-had never stirred | once; she could not, and she had heard every word. | She rese slowly when they disappeared—cramped, Datnied~ chilled to the heart. Dully. she recollected that she might j be missed, might be searched for, might be found there. She ‘ya had no wish for that. Be She tottered, rather than walked, ip ber comicbor | K ] x om a A a