The Dugdale Millions — page 271: what you’re looking at

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

A-BURST OF SCONSHINE, 261 is here. I goto the test. Iam not so worthy as in those boyish dreams I promised myself I should be, but here I am before you, pleading, ready to accept what may follow, seeing hope, brightness, happiness in the one event; despair, darkness, and a hfe before me from which the light is quenched, in the other.’’ They were moving slowly across the grass as Dick talked, his voice trembling with the intensity of his passion, and Bessie with her cheeks aflame. Hereyes were cast upon the ground and Dick’s head bent for- ward toward her in an anxious endeavor to discover the effect his words were producing. ‘Trembling so much that she did not dare trust herself to speak, and indeed not knowing what reply to make, were she to pve nerseli tontue; she. was silent...-Her face was not averted this time, it had been bent when he began to talk and she had not lifted it. Dick waited for some reply, but none being forthcoming he went on, and this time with some uncertainty in his tone, as if he were making great effort to keep himself within bounds. When his voice again fell upon her ear there was in it a quality of pathos which touched her. ‘Of course,’’ he said, **I cannot expect you to com- prehend what thismeans to me. It 1s life, it is every- thing.” He hesitated a moment and then, as if he could no longer control himself, he exclaimed: ‘‘O God! Have I been living ina fool’s paradise? Have I been taking the mere kindness of a womanly heart for tenderness? Is my life’s dream at last at an end?’’ Bessie lifted her head with a quick, impulsive motion and turned her shining blue eyes upon hin, those eyes in which Dick saw not only the tears trembling, but the lovelight dancing. He impulsively caught her hand, fully satisfied and overwhelmed with joy, though she had spoken never a word. Merri- mount and Wallis had now passed over the brow of the hill. They were out of sight of the house, but if Comicbooclk CO