At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 179: what you’re looking at

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

168 AT A GIRL’S MERCY. A sudden desire—almost a frenzy—took possession of him to face her and prove to her that he knew too well the hardness and the bitterness of the silent struggle where one-had to sit down and do nothing while the fight went on, and the victory could never be for him. He clenched his hands in desperation, and turned his head upon the hard pillow. His face was set, and his eyes not the tender gray eyes Helen Travers had met with hers all her life. He faced her with this struggle stamped upon his face, and the hard- ness and the struggling suddenly ceased. The quivering, tender face, the eyes intense with their hidden soul, the sweet red mouth in its brave struggle to hide its own bitterness—all thesé met his sullen eyes, and forgetting all these brave resolu- tions, all the honest, manly feelings he had been try- ing to fill his heart with instead of the love he had longed for—and the two warm little hands were in his, held in aimost a fierce grasp, the tender face was drawn suddenly nearer, forgetting all else save what he read in the face before him, and there came a sudden ending to all his bitter battle in swift de- feat by the tenderness of a woman. — “My darling!’ he breathed, rather than spoke, and Helen was. ready to fight her struggle with death and sickness and all the harsh lines of her life in that dreary, sad hospital, filled with all that should fill life with sorrow, save and excepting this win- ning of the bravest heart she could care to win. CHAPTER XVIII. A STARTLING DEVELOPMENT. ‘“‘T have such a strange letter here, I shall read it to you, Charlie, in order to make you glad you are to <0 home so shortly,’’ Helen said, sitting down beside her lover, the smile on her lips, but hiding the trouble in her heart. “It is such a strange—or rather the news it contains is so strange that I want your help in unraveling the mystery. For my part I cannot guess how such a terrible thing comi