At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 188: what you’re looking at

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

\ \ AT A GIRLS MERCY. 177 \Imay prove to you that the love of a man like my- self is capable of carrying out any plan for the win- ning of his wooing, and you will regret every scorn- ful word you have uttered to me, not only now, but the many bitter words and actions of your past life when we were children together, and you would prove your -hatred of me by your wide eyes.and curved red lips as you clung to your boy lover. Bah, whata lover he was! You shall feel the power of another sort of lover, Nan Courtland, and acknowl- edge that Iam as proud as you and as well able to win i. the fight for a wife as Captain Travers could ever be.”’ _ He laughed again,showing the white teeth in that sinister smile of his, the glittering eyes under the black brows flashing with an evil light that little Nan should have feared were it not that her inno- cence and her ignorance of his planning left her free to go her way with no fear of harm, though she knew that this man was capable of proving himself - as thorough a villain as any. | His hope of holding the amount her father owed him over her to. bring her to his terms had fallen through. The squire had paid the amount down at his first demand, uttering no word of how much it had cramped him to do so, and he must use the next means he had planned to gain his footing above them. He had worked some of his plans to perfec- tion; what reason was there for his not proving as successful in all he should attempt? If he should prove that there was no such word as fail in his vo- cabulary, would Nan Courtland still hold him a coward? Would any one dare meet him face to face, and tell him he was not a man that he did not enter the battle lists? Was he not fighting his own battle — at home with the certainty of victory? Was Nan Courtland, in her new role of nurse to the suffering soldiers, any more freed from his grasp than Nan Courtland, the dainty daughter of the Hall? Could he not follow her wherever she be, and still make her feel the power of his hatred of her, still make her understand that he was not the coward she had — taunted him with being? Nan Courtland, the dainty =. (eo) Gomicbooks 3