Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 224: what you’re looking at

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

216 HER ROYAL LOVER. rial, had seated themselves at table at five o’clock? For the residence city this innovation appeared ex- traordinary. The king, profiting by the few moments which left him at liberty between the arrival of the old empress and the hour wherein it would be necessary to rejoin her, ran quickly to Madame de Mineleko. “Perhaps I cannot come again this evening, my best-beloved,” he said to her, sadly; “I am much erieved at it. Why must this heavy task of king and son-in-law keep me away from thee whom I adore and at whose feet I would wish to remain for- ever? But yet afew days, and I will leave thee no more; yet a few days and I will be thine, as thou wilt be forever mine! To be no longer an hour, an hour without thee! to live of thy life! Oh! this happiness! how slow it is in coming?” After this short visit from the king, Najeska Ivanowna was entirely alone. Alone! was this really so? Oh! no, for was she not living with her recollections of the past, her thoughts of the future? This evening she received a visit from her advo- cate. But just returned from Caucasus, where she had sent him to terminate all the business of her di- vorce, he came to give her an account of his accom- plished mission. | “Princess, allis completed. You know that the Prince of Mineleko, before his departure, has at last, but not without difficulty, submitted to all the conditions decreed by the Supreme Court.” “The refusal which you have made to accept of the pension of which you were to make use for your- self and your dear babies, and which he has only learned on his arrival in the Celestial Empire, has been painful to him; his eagle head was grieved at Eomichbooks.co