A Silver Brand — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

8 A SILVER BRAND. “Minion!” he exclaimed, wrathfully, “you hold out your pride and your obstinacy well. But I have not tried half my powers of torment yet. I came to tell you news.” Had the gentle zephyrs alone disturbed the peace- _ ful silence there, she had not looked more uncon- scious or indifferent, gently breaking the stem of another flower. He muttered a. fierce oath and strode forward, and laid a rude hand upon her shoulder. “Minion, I command you to listen! Isay I came to bring you momentous tidings.” She shook off the touch with such a look as she might have given at the vicinity of the most loath- some reptile, and sprang to the other side of the walk, facing him at last with her deadly white face and those blazing blue eyes. He laughed jeeringly. “So you are aware of your master’s presence at last? Poor fool! will you never learn how you. might be happy?” 66 Happy 1? There was a world of bitterness and horror in the tone.. ) “Yes, happy—resigned to inexorable circum- stances, willing to take what brightness and pleas- ure 1 offer you,” he continued, softening his tone and endeavoring to assume a persuasive mildness. “Come, foolish one! put off this hard resentment— avert, while itis possible, the terrible fate which you know lies in my hands for you. You must ac- knowledge my power. You see how hopeless must be your most plausible expectation of escape. You have tried it and failed a dozen times in these long fifteen years that you have lived alone in this dreary prison. Howis it possible for you to hold out so long? Itis- as wonderful as that my passion has also endured, even though you have changed into a faded and worn, though I swear it, still charmingly lovely woman. My lady Pauline, listen to reason. Answer me kindly, and I forswear the revenge that nothing but your yielding can balk me of.” , He took another step toward her, extending a €Comicbooks.com