At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

124 AT A GIRLS MERCY. ture life, should he never come back to her. She had not thought, of that, she had not troupled about his never coming to her, he was so strong and so neces- sary to the world, it seemed to her. If he should never come back to her—she could not think of that. She roused herself, and would not think of it. She began setting the flowers one against another to try the effect of each, but it was an aimless trial. She knew she would in the end place them as she hap- pened to lift them, and take them in to her mother, as she had done every day since her illness—since Ned went away. And thinking of him and the struggle going on, her thoughts went back to the man whom her father had so railed against the pre- vious evening when they sat in the old library talk- ing their evening talks. The feeling of dread was upon her again, and she could not shake it off, though she tried even. to lift her voice to more gayety in her song. She had no heart for singing, that was evident, whether be- cause it was so stiflingly warm in the garden, or be- cause she really had no wish for singing. She gave _ up the attempt and dropped the flowers, letting her chin rest in her two hands, as she rested her elbows on her knees and thought, thought, thought, till it seemed to her she could think no more, that her mind and brain would go mad if she did not give up this dreadful thinking. It seemed to her impossible that she could hate Howard Blake more than she did the day before, but at the present moment it seemed to her she had never hated him, that the feeling cf distrust and dislike she had felt for him were mild. forms com- pared with the feeling she possessed for him at that moment. She would not lift her hand—no, not if, tcomicbooks.com