Stella Rosevelt — page 397: what you’re looking at

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

REHEARSING THE PAST. * 391 was why you confessed what you did to him regarding your affection for me.” | ‘‘Did Mr. Meredith tell you that——” Star began, blushing crimson as she remembered what her confession had been. ‘‘Yes, my beloved, and no hungry heart ever feasted upon sweeter words. ‘They changed the whole future for me, and I was intending te start again for America in just three weeks, to search for the star of my life; the past has been very lonely and hopeless.” _. Yes, indeed,” Star returned, with a long sigh; ‘‘and yet,” she added, looking up with a smile, ‘‘I am glad that I am not to come to you guz/e so empty-handed as you found me.” ~ You surely do not regret the promise that you made me then?’ Lord Carrol questioned, reproachfully. ‘No; for it proves that you won me for myself alone; but now that I know you are a peer of England, it is a comfort to _ feel that no one can point the finger of scorn at me and say that you have chosen beneath you.” - He stopped her with a tender caress. ‘“No one should ever have said that to me with impunity, under any circumstances,” he rejoined, gravely. They talked a long time, and everything was explained—all the events of the past rehearsed, all Josephine’s duplicity and hatred made known. | ‘She is a heartless woman—a most contemptible woman, ” Lord Carrol said, with curling lips and stern brow; ‘‘and I deeply regret that she is to become a resident in England, as we shall doubtless be obliged to meet her in society. She has wronged you shamefully, my darling. However,” he added, with a luminous smile, ‘‘she considers that the “position of Lady Carrol will be an enviable one,’ and, since you are to fill it, I think her punishment will not be a light one.” Her punishment was to be no light one, but 4e had no idea how humiliating it would be. (E(0) GEomicbooks