The Widowed Bride — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

92 THE WIDOWED BRIDE. tional in her diet as in other things, making her meal off a crust of bread and a glass of ice-water, although the table _ was loaded with every delicacy of the season. Her eyes kept returning with a species of fascination to the corpse-like face, although she was much embarrassed once or twice when Miss Clive, suddenly raising her eyes, encountered the curious gaze of her new acquaintance. ‘You need not blush so deeply, Miss Percival,” she said with a smile, when this had happened more than once. “‘T am accustomed to being looked at, as if I were a curiosity!” “I beg your pardon,” began Rena, coloring more deeply than ever; ‘‘I did not intend “It is scarcely worth your while to apologize,” said Miss Clive, abruptly. ‘You are young, and I can read in your face that you have a kind heart. I shall take no offense at your regards.” Rena Percival was considerably relieved when the cere- monious and long-protracted meal drew to a close, and she accompanied Lady Blanche out into the purple darkness of the late August evening, where the lights from the drawing- room windows fell across their way as they paced arm in arm up and down the marble pavement of the broad ter- race. ‘‘Dear Blanche,” she said, eagerly, ‘‘tell me about that Miss Clive. Why does she dress so strangely and look so marble white? And why does she stare at you asif she were blind, and speak always in that low tone, almost. be- neath her breath? Is she er ay 2” She spoke the last word in a whisper, drawing closer to Lady Blanche as she did so. ‘‘Crazy?—no,” answered Lady Blanche; “‘but I some- times wonder that she is not. Only think, ‘dear Rena—she was out walking in this very park nine—no, ten years ago, and came suddenly upon the corpse of her murdered lover —the man to whom she was to have been married the next day.” 3 How dreadful!’ said Rena, shuddering. ‘But, who murdered him, Blanche?” ‘We never knew. He had not an enemy in the world that people were aware of, and there was nothing stolen, so that the deed could not have been committed for the sake of greed of gain. I was with her at the time—a little creature, scarcely more than a baby—and I can just remember hear- cComicbooks.co