The Widowed Bride — page 222: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE. 913 hated them because they stood between my little one and the boundless wealth that would else be hers; I hated them because I knew you had never loved me as you loved their dead mother; I hated them, because after the lapse of years of fancied security, they had come back to imperil all my hopes and plans! Could any one expect me to have mercy upon them? Old Jason Garfield was dead! I knew from the ghastly hue upon his face that I had nothing further to fear from him, and as I went out across the threshold, I decreed the destiny of those children in my heart! One of them had wakened with a start as I glided by her—oh! had she but known the shadow of peril that hung over her!” Lady Glenhampton paused for a moment and wiped the cold dew from her marble white forehead. Her husband stood with folded arms and compressed lips, listening to her frightful tale. | : ‘TT waited in the shadow of the hemlocks beyond,” she went on, “‘until all was silent, and then I crept back and threw a lighted match among the molded tresses of hay in an out-building, from whichI knew the flames must inevi- ~ tably communicate with the lodge when they had smoth- ered their way through the latticed door, and then I hurried back tothe house. I was in time, fortunately—the progress of the flames was slow and imperceptible at first, and at one period I stood on the terrace half resolved to go back and complete the work which seemed frustrated for the moment, | Yes, it was my hand which burned that wretched hovel to the ground,” she added, slowly, with her eyes fixed upon space, while a shiver thrilled through her whole frame. ‘‘Oh, those sleeping faces. I have seen them every day and every hour since—in my dreams at night, rising up before me like phantom guests, when the gayest scenes surrounded me. I have never once regretted the blow I struck the hypocrite, Hunsworth, except for poor Antonia Clives sake, but I would to Heaven the weight of those children’s blood could be lifted off my soul!” «‘And it is lifted off,” said Lord Glenhampton, speaking the words by an evident effort. ‘‘Look, there, Edith?!” He drew back the azure satin folds of the curtain as he spoke and pointed to the terrace beneath where Ernest Hve- lyn sat, indolently inhaling the blue incense of his insepara- ble companion, a cigar, while his young wife stood leaning over his chair, her eyes fixed dreamily on the upper windows cComicbooks:co