Lady Evelyn — page 240: what you’re looking at

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

— feeling of oppression, as though there were not air enough to breathe in the long drawing-room, opened one of the French windows and stepped out-upon the lawn. The gentlemen lingered long over their wine and wal- nuts. My lady was half asleep over her high-church novel ere they entered. The keen eyes of Trevannance mussed his liege lady at the first glance; at the second they caught sight of a slender, stately figure out there on the moonlit lawn. «An instant later and he was by her side. ~~ Mutual Confession. 233 she glanced up, not startled, not surprised; she had ex- — pected him; but the beautiful face in the starlight looked paler than he had ever seen it. ‘Iam glad you have come,” she said, slowly. “I have much to sav to you to-night.” He bowed, and offered her his arm without a word. In silence they walked down between the copper beeches, out of sight of the lamplit windows. - “T have a confession to make,” began Lady Evelyn Des- mond, and the tremor in her clear voice alone told how bitterly painful and humiliating that confession was to - her proud heart, “a confession I owe to you as my plighted husband. When _I promised to try and love you, I honestly meant to keep my word; I have kept it; I have tried, and—failed. When you asked me upon your re-— turn—ah! such a short time ago!—if any one else had supplanted you, I scorned to answer so preposterous a question. My heart was as free as when you first asked for it. ‘—In my wicked pride I thought myself superior to such base weakness, and—lI have been properly punished. ~ I am the weakest and falsest of all women!” | There was a pause. They had stopped in their walk, and she covered her face with both hands, with a pas- — sionate sob. , Never before had she seemed so near to him, so woman- ly, as in this hour of her confessed weakness. And yet— was it a great throb of relief that set his heart plunging im a most unwonted way for that well-trained organ? “T am to understand, then,” he said in his low, linger- ing accents, “that the heart Lady Evelyn Desmond can not give to me, has been. bestowed upon some more-fortu- nate man?” “Oh, forgive _ ‘a aS,’ me! forgive me! I meant to do right; I ah OE NEST Soar comicbooks.co wa . : vy ‘ioe | abet ‘ oy: ‘ WK uf oe. e, “Yn Fal yt obo at a ha + \ Ty fs rs . . ot ~ 4 > ‘ 4 Mey Ret x "’ es Yess AY) oom ie, ee ae Meath Yor itty oe ie Pee law, | eentye eal =. come eae idey OS aah! wees a. > yo’ Vine : Oe IC. oe SY