A Silver Brand — page 176: what you’re looking at

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

168 A SILVER BRAND. the tree and looked up to its leafy summit where his com- panion still clung.. She was so deadly pale he exclaimed, hastily : | “T will come up and help you down this minute. It has been a hard strain upon your strength to keep up there, I know. It would be hard enough for a rough man, let alone a delicate lady, that has been through as much as you to-day.” ee “What course are you intending to take?” she asked. . “T dare not venture down yet. I shall be recognized here.” “T meant to search for some cart to take us to my home. You might go in and rest at the first cottage we find.” “No. Iwill not come down yet. There is too much risk attending any recognition. Not so much of my per- son as of the fact of your having a companion. You do not know, as I do, what a wide-spread investigation will be. made as soon as my escape is made known. I will remain where Tam. I -cancling here an hour longer; but once down I could never find my way back. And this retired field, screened as it is from the road, is the safest hiding- place for me until your cart arrives. Leave me and go in search of one. Andif you can manage to do without a driver until you have secreted me under the balloon ear, so much the safer and better.” ‘‘Is there so much danger then?” he asked, wonderingly. “You must be a personage of great importance.” ““Not as much that, my kind friend, as that mine enemy sits ina high place. Itis wrong for me to try and make light of the danger to you. And there is yet time _ for you to withdraw,” she added, in a sorrowful, pathetic tone, “My lady, now you hurt me more cruelly than did the wanton indifference of that-ruffian count. Withdraw, forsake you in your great need? No, no, madam, not if it costs me my liberty, even my life,” answered, he fervently. “May Heaven reward and bless you!” came sobbingly from out the leafy screen. “Ican do nothing now, but if the time comes that I am restored to my rights, you shall be richly rewarded for this magnanimous and chivalrous kindness. Gothen; delay no longer. I confess that my limbs tremble, and my strength is nearly exhausted.” _ “Let me bring you up a flask of wine—it is fortunately shut tight in the drawer of the car—and then I will make haste to find a conveyance to take usaway. It is a most fortunate circumstance that we landed in this retired spot, comicbooks:c