A Struggle for a Ring — page 251: what you’re looking at

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

A WIFE'S AGONY. 247 stir or excitement, she liked a strong body-guard around her. Trembling, faint, and dizzy, Alice looked round as though seeking some hope of escape; there was none. Some pretty point lace that she was making for the countess lay on the table. She took it up and went to the far side of the room, where the rich hangings and pro- fusion of flowers almost hid her from sight. It was Lady Waldrove’s boudoir, where that dainty lady went through all her interviews and partings. ‘*T shall receive my son here,” she said; ‘‘it was here that I bade him good-by.” The mother who loved him so dearly sat with impa- tience on every line of her face; the young wife, who would have given her life for him, sat half-hidden far apart praying, with white lips and shadowed eyes, that she might not die when her eyes fell on his face. Some minutes passed—how many she hardly knew; then Lady Gertrude came in, with some little excitement in her manner. | ‘«Mamma, he has altered so greatly,” she said ‘‘He is so much improved you will hardly know him.” ‘‘ He was always handsome,” murmured my lady. Then came the sound of footsteps that Alice knew so well. She pressed her hand on her heart, for its wild beat- ing frightened her, as each step fell on her ear. She could have cried aloud in her agony, with the terrible tension of her nerves; but her white lips could form no sound. . The next minute he had entered the room, and looking on him once more, Alice did not die. He was wonder- fully changed. Five years had transformed him from a handsome, dark-haired stripling to a tall, splendid man, whose face was bronzed and bearded, ‘‘a soldier every inch Gomicboo cS CeCe)