The Widowed Bride — page 197: what you’re looking at

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

we a ~ 188 : - THE WIDOWED BRIDE. one of the most ambitious women in England, is determined that I shall secure wealth and ease by marrying some heir- ess or other.’ _ Alice had grown pale. But, Ernest, not if you did not love her?” “Love!” he echoed, with a bitter laugh. ‘My Alice, love enters but little into the calculations of the world. No—if I go back to Glenhampton, I shall be drawn into the vortex which it is impossible to resist. It rests with you, my guardian angel, to save me from a life which I shudder to contemplate! Will you turn from my pleading?” She involuntarily nestled nearer to him. ‘‘How can I save you, Ernest?” “By becoming my wife at once. Alice, you will consent? Once indissolubly bound to each other, no earthly power can avail to sever our united futures; we shall have nothing to fear.” She looked into his face, and placed her hand trustingly in his. ‘Tt shall be as you wish, dear Ernest.” “My own darling, you can never know from what you have saved me,” he murmured, almost audibly. And they were married under the hoary, echoing arches ~— of Cresslyn Church by a sleepy-looking young curate who, probably, supposed them to be one of the many runaway - English couples who sought the outskirts of the sister king- doms, to consummate their unions, sometimes from sheer love of the romance of the thing sometimes from deeper and more substantial motives. The noonday sunshine touched the beautiful young bride’s hair with lustrous gleams of gold, as she came out of the ehurch porch, leaning on the arm of her newly made hus- band, and nis heart thrilled high with exultant pride and love. ‘“My Alice,” he whispered, bowing his head to her, “‘you do not regret the step you have taken?” “Regret it!” She echoed the words with such soft, incredulous tender- ness that 16 gave a new happiness to this moment of bliss, “And Heaven helping me, you never shall!” he added. Ernest Evelyn had been a trifler all his life, but his character was dev veloping now, in the elevating influence of this new, genuine love, as a flower gTOWS In the showers comicbooks.co