Moths by Ouida — page 333: what you’re looking at

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

' MOTHS. gag of the console by which she stood, but no cry escaped her; she recovered herself and stood erect, a little stunned, but with no fear upon her face. . ‘*You have all your rights now,” he‘cried, brutally, witha rough laugh that covered his shame at his ownact. ‘* You car divorce me, Madame la Princesse: ‘infidelity sous la conjugal, _ violence personelle,’ and all the rest: you have all your rights, The law will be with you.” ‘*T shall not divorce you,” said Vere, while the great pain of the blow, which had fallon on her breast, ached and throbbed through all her body. ‘‘I shall not divorce you; 1 do not take my wrongs into the shame of public courts; but—I go—or—she ' goes.” An exceeding faintness came over her, and she was forced to sit down lest she should fallagain, and the air around her grew dark and seemed full of noise. Zouroff rang loudly for her woman. ‘‘The princess fell against the marble—an accident; she has fainted,” he said, hurriedly, and he escaped from the chamber, In a few moments he was with Jeanne de Sonnaz. In the utter weakness of his submission to the domination which she had ob- tained over him, he had grown so used to seek counsels in all things and at all times that he told her all now. Her rage ex- finguished his own, as one fire swallows up another. ‘*Oh, imbecile!” she screamed at him. ‘‘If Paul hear—if the world know—I am lost forever!” He stared at her with gloomy amaze. ‘*Paul knows; society too: they always have known——’ ‘‘Oh, madman!” she yelled at him, with her shining eyes all aflame. ‘‘ They have known, certainly, but they could still seem not to know, and did so. Now, if once it be a public scandal, Paul will act, and the world wiil be with him! Good God! If your wife leaves the house for me, I am ruined forever!’ ‘‘T have given her what will keep her still.” } ‘You are a brute; you were alwaysa brute. That is nothing new. But your wife you do not know. She will getup though she is dying, and go, now she once knows, now she has once said that she will not stay where Iam. Wait, wait, wait! you Dnbe- cile! Let me think: your wife must not go. For her sake! no! good heavens, no!—for mine.” va Sergius Zouroff stood passive and uncomplaining under the torrent of her abuse. 7 ‘¢ A scandal, a story for the papers, a cause for the tribunals; good heavens! have you and I lived all these years only to fall into such helpless folly at the Jast?” she shrieked at him. ‘‘ Why did you have mecome here? Paul will take Berthe and Claire away, - if he dono more. Oh, you madman! why did you not show me your wife’s note before you went to her? She is right, she is always right, and you were a brute to strike her; but she wants her divorce, of course, why not? she loves Correze, and is a wom-~ an afraid of sin. Butshe shall not go; she must not go; I wil sooner——” ‘s-You shall never go for her.” 0 nee eg rr Cexoy jayicel exeye) cS ee)