Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 209: what you’re looking at

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

HER ROYAL LOVER. . 201 thoughts were equally divided at present between him who was disquieting her, and Conrad, whom she adored. What was becoming of the poor outcast rejected by all? More affected than he wished to allow him- self to appear, the disgrace which had overtaken him was troubling him. His arrogant soul refusing to acknowledge how much repentance and confession rehabilitates the guilty, he was going about, asserting to everybody that this infernal history of the anonymous letter was only an odious machination, plotted by an ig- noble girl of the lowest class, in expectation of pocketing some money. But, whatsoever he might say, no one believed him. Despair had become his habitual guest; remorse was overwhelming him, he could not eat, he never laughed. As everybody, embarrassed by his pres- ence, was ostensibly affecting to avoid him, he went out no morein the day-time. Awaiting the night like a noxious and malevolent beast, he fre- quented isolated roads, seeking to breathe the pure air of which his withered chest as well as his fever- ish head had such sore need. Notwithstanding all the poesy of the sleeping fields, notwithstanding all the fragrance of the hedges of elder and hawthorn, notwithstanding the perfume which was escaping from the full-blown flowers of August, notwithstand- ing the obscurity of the firmament all studded with a thousand fires, the unhappy man remained in | different to these beauties. For him to walk was a necessity but a weariness also; to rest, a necessity as well as a burden; for, if he had been willing to undertake anything he would have found the same obstacles opposed to him everywhere; his felony, comicbooks.com