Lady Evelyn — page 230: what you’re looking at

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

fort you any—yes. “In the Tents of the Gypsies. 2.23 Had I been free— Oh, why speak of this? As for rank, you are only greater than I, better, braver, nobler! ! never knew until to-day, what a base, utterly despicable creature | am—weak and unstable as water. See what I have done! have given myself to a man I do not love gentleman, who trusts me and believes in me, plighted my word, and see how I keep it. To please my father, I an honorable I have No one—not he, when he hears this—and hear it he must—can despise It is useless wishing we had never Our expiation, as you say, must be in parting at For- me as I despise myself. met. once and forever. Farewell, Colonel Drummond! get me; [ am not worthy of any good man’s regard.”’ She extended her right hand, the other covered her He spoke no word; he raised the hand she extended face. to his lips. she was alone. It was his silent adieu. She stood there long, rigid, and still. A moment later and The ringing of the dinner-bell aroused her; the heart breaks, but we must dine. away. She turned mechanically and walked At the same instant a recumbent figure raised it- self from the wilderness of ivy and tangled fern and roses It was Vivian Trevannance, there beneath the window. by the merest accident, and who had heard every word. The man who called himself Colonel CHAPTER IX. a ? IN THE TENTS OF THE GYPSIES. Drummond -mounted his horse and rode away from the lodge-gate, whither he neither knew nor cared. Never before—no, not when doomed to a felon’s death for the murder of Kathleen O’Neal—not when the woman he was to wed, the coronet he should have worn, the friend who should. have been as a brother, were all alike false and lost to him—had the bitterness at his heart been so deep and deadly as now. For at twenty we love but lightly, and though our hearts are well-nigh broken to-day, Youth and Hope heal the wound, and we smile and eat our din= © ner to-morrow, and postpore sticide and despair to a more auspicious season. Ser behind us, ive! is et and sorrow ‘comics and 200 ey wee Sy Sy ee, A tw, J 4 Te ey mh twit d Se _ é 7 i ~~ F ) WATE he 1a Bh +¥ , , (e (ef @) sh But at forty, with buoyant S.CO