A Heart's Bitterness — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

38 A HEART’S BITTERNESS. — to challenge this long silence. Pride should not divide him from the love of his heart, without at least one honest strug- — gle. He had come, therefore, to discover why the Violet so _ tenderly his in the past, was not his Violet still? When Kate went to summon her lady, Lord Keith sat down in the embrasure of a window, and recalled, as he had done hundreds of times, in hundreds of places, the image of his girl-love. Once more he saw her, with her innocent smile, hight step, eager eyes, coming through the shadowy. woods to meet him, while Kate, with work or book, came. behind, apparently oblivious of the fact that-her little lady expected to greet a friend. How the small, soft hand had flutterd in his, like a bird caught in a net, how the shy blushes had come and gone on the dimpled cheek, how hon- est in their tenderness had been the wide brown eyes. A soft stir of drapery woke him from his dream. It was a portiere falling into place, and against the deep maroon velvet stood Violet—Violet, no dream, but flesh and blood, Violet so like the love of the past! All the love of those vanished years rolled back on his heart and flashed into his eyes as he saw her. He could not, he would not, be robbed of her. She was no longer a - child, wax in the hands of relatives and guardians, but wo- man grown, and by her woman’s heart she should be guided. What answer would that heart make to him, her lover? __ He sprang toward her; such a ceremonious greeting as he had contemplated since their cold meeting in the Louvre -was forgotten. He held out both his arms, that would so gladly infold her, and cried: “Oh, Violet. Oh, my darling, do I see you at last?” But, with a low cry, Violet evaded him. ‘T'here was a great arm-chair near her,-and instinctively she placed her- self behind it, as a sheltering barrier. She turned on him eyes of intense reproach, and said, in a voice of agony: ‘“How dare you? how dare you?” ‘<I dare, because I love,” said Kenneth Keith, boldly, — coming as near her as he could, and so standing with the great chair, between them, on which the plush-cushioned back of which Violet folded her arms for support, as she trembled so she could scarcely stand. — You love!” she said, with anger and scorn. ‘‘ This is a strange time to tell me you love—after all these years!” _ “They are years, indeed, and long years,” said Keith, in S) (E(@) comicboo