Sealed Lips — page 231: what you’re looking at

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

SHALED LIFS, 223 I would like to know! How much easier I should die if I could have two questions answered. Do you love her? Are you the one that she loves?” “ Always the same ideas!” sighed the young man as he arose, incapable of hearing more. “They are not the same ideas. I see myself clearly now, and I assure you that it does not make me proud of myself. Ah! if you only would tell me all! Whatdo you fear? There, where I am going there are no reproaches or quarrels. Come! sit down beside me again. Let me take your hand, this hand that I have seen when so small and weak. How strong itis now. How regularly, how calmly, and how strong your pulse beats! What a differ- ence to my poor used up machine!” Ciodefroid was silent, holding in his own his friend’s robust, healthy hand. He thought with the instinctive envy of a dying man that these bounding arteries that he felt would beat many mil- lions of times after his should have stopped forever. Suddenly it seemed as if a storm was raging under his fingers. The pulse became quickly agi- tated. Almost at the same moment a carriage that Patrice had heard first stopped before the door; it brought back Jenny. Quick steps could be heard coming up the stairs; the tempest redoubled. Out- side the door a voice asked, with a new vibration in it: “Has he arrived?” The door turned softly on its hinges. The one EGOmichboo KS