Lady Evelyn — page 223: what you’re looking at

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

Ses iis rear dae gazed 1 tone: nat ‘earnestly int. j the: aie Po Hes. c oo. “i see here a ‘strangely checkered past—very bright, very dark—strange and tragical. A hand has been lifted against your life; some strong and deadly enemy has darkened your past; but the power of that enemy is at an end. The clouds are behind; the sun shines brightly before; the close will compensate for the beginning.” She dropped his hand. | Did she speak at random? Or did his face tell her, boa bienly skilled in physiognomy, of that darkened, bitter past? It startled even him. He turned and looked straight into the eyes of that “strong and deadly enemy.” - And the earl was as white as a dead man. Lady Evelyn _ drew a long, tremulous breath, and her lover felt her un- ~ - conscious, tightened grasp upon his arm relax. : “Vague,” he said—‘“vague as the Delphic oracle, and : mysterious—very. | knew there was a mystery, and a - tragedy, and a romance, and a!! that sort of thing, hidden away in Drummond’s life, and now—‘oh, my prophetic soul!’—here we have it for a fact. Colon vel, I beg to con- _ gratulate you upon the brilliant, sunlit prospective spread- ing before you. But whilst he spoke, voice and face matchless!y serene, he was filled with a strange, secret dread. Was it only _ chance—this truth she had told himself—and what did my Lady Evelyn think of it? He glanced at her; the beautiful face looked still and pale, and kept its secrets 4" poss well. | - . “shall we go?” she said, briefly. “Or must we stay in __the hot sun among the crowd, listening further to this - folly?” | “T beg your pardon—the fault has been mine. Do you —, return with Miss Albemarle in the phaeton, or will you ride with me?” ““T will ride, if you wish it.” _A vague twinge of remorse shot through her whilst . ae she spoke. A dim consciousness of her own infidelity of ae thought to the man she must wed was beginning to dawn upon her. For Redempta’s words to him she was far too Se paeeoud to ask for any explanation, even had she believed — ee! _ them. APRA ie. 4 :