A Heart's Bitterness — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

ve a * - “ . ‘s , ui } - = id wre << . ‘ - - + . : 5 eee es «eae > ® P| : | 4 A HEART'S BITTERNESS. ve «You can go away. Oh, go, please go; leave the Towers this day, this hour.” ‘Violet, have I grieved you in any way, that you wish -metoleave your” _. | You? Oh, no, Lady Burton; you only in all the world ie: have seemed like a real mother tome. But you must go. Go, and take Lord Keith with you. Let menever see him again. Never, never! Lady Burton,.take him away, I be- seech you! I cannot endure the torture of his presence. — He is the one love of my life; and—oh, I am married to an- Ls other—to love Kenneth is a sin.” - : Lady Burton turned deathly pale. “She took Violet by '. the shoulders and held her back, scrutinizing the white, . tear-wet face. ‘«¢ What!” she cried; ‘‘ has my son, whom I have reared to _be the soul of honor, come to his friend’s house and em- ployed his time in making love to his friend’s wife?” ‘No, no! Do not blame him; it is not Kenneth; it is. se all my fault, not his—only mine.” : es “Tt do not understand. My poor child, what is this? - . Have you given your heart so easily, in these less than three ~ weeks?” : re ~ Do not look at me so, Lady Burton. Help me, pity -.me. It is not in these weeks only that I have seen him. But four years ago—four years! for such six happy weeks, as never were lived anywhere else out-of heaven. I knew him in Lincolnshire, and we loved, and promised each other to be true, and we were parted, and my grandmother came between, and made me think him false. Oh, Lady Bur- ton, how weak and faithless in Kenneth was my heart. I did not see him again until I was married. And I found he had loved megand hoped for me, all that time. And _ then it was too late. Iam Lord Leigh’s wife, and I must bea faithful wife until I die. And Lady Burton, how can ____ I pray God ‘deliver me from temptation,” when I daily live in temptation?” | “You are right, my own, sweet, noble love. We will go. I will spare you this, at least—the presence of the ose you love. Oh, how wrong it was for him to come ere. Pel we — . ** Do not blame him, Lady Burton. From what Lord Leigh wrote, he feared I was ill and unhappy, and he could hot stay away; he wanted to help me, to have you help me; 7 ae comicbooks.co