A Silver Brand — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

A SILVER BRAND. — 13 passed. Whenshe could walk steadily she made her way to the chair and sat down. The ringing footfalls of the impatient horses an- nounced to her the royal departure, something like an hour after. She turned her eye slowly as they came out into view. Alas, the graceful, leafy curtain no longer obstructed her view. She sat erect, rigid and haughty, until the horsemen were entirely lost to view. And then, catching one long, sobbing breath, she sprang up and ran like a de- mented creature from one despoiled nook to an- other, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly. “Oh, Lloved them—I loved them. They kept me innocent company and beguiled my thoughts from my maddening wrongs, my cruel imprisonment. Woe is me—if I could only die!” she moaned. In passing hastily from one point to another her feet touched the packet he had left. She stood looking down upon it, with something of the same loathing and defiant expression which she gave to him who had left it there. Then some sudden impulse made her stoop and raise it. | “ Anything, no matter what, to divert my thoughts from this cruel blow,” she murmured, and sitting down untied the packet, and opened the letters. At the very first, the eyes deepened and widened, a low exclamation escaped her, and then she read on swiftly, with a feverish, absorbed desperation that scarcely allowed breath. When the last had fallen away from her icy fingers, she sprang up, and stretched up her hands to the sky. | “Oh, Heaven, if you are not forever deaf to the cry of injured innocence, hear me now, help me! help me! I must escape! I will escape, if I perish in the attempt! Oh, help me! help me!” The wail was almost a shriek. She ran to the railing, and looked wildly down to the dizzy depth below. She flew down the stairs, and passed swiftly — through a suite of comfortably furnished rooms, and wrenched with her delicate hands at every solid iron bar that protected the windows. From thence she darted to a massive door, iron clamped, ~ Comicbooks com -