A Struggle for a Ring — page 356: what you’re looking at

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

352 “J CANNOT SIN FOR YOU?” replied. ‘‘I had not given much thought to love at all; but, Ailie, when I had left you with your friends and came home here to Roseneath, I fell in love for the first and only time in my life.” She held up her hands as though he had struck her a terrible blow. oe ‘‘Do not say that!” she cried. ‘‘ For God’s dear sake, do not say that!” ‘‘It is true,” he replied. ‘‘I must tell you, Ailie; I would spare you all knowledge of it, if I could; I would refrain from telling you, if I could; but you must hear my story, Ailie, or you cannot judge. I will not hide even one thought from you. I met Lady Ethel—it is five years ago; she was beautiful then as she is now, and I loved her the first moment that I saw her; there was no help for it; _ but, Ailie, I remembered also there was a barrier between us.” The fair young face had grown deadly pale; the sweet, sensitive lips were quivering like the lips of a grieved child. ‘<'Tell me, Lord Carsdale,” she said, ‘‘did she—did Lady Ethel like you ?” 3 ‘*T will tell you the whole truth. I know now that she _ loved me. We parted, and I quite believed that before I * returned to England she would be married and have for- gotten all about me. But I find that for five years she has loved me, and has been true to her memory of me.” ‘<So have I,” said Ailie. ‘*Oh, my love! my love! she cannot have cared more for you, or have thought more of you, than I have done.” Tinen there was silence; but the leaves on the trees did not tremble as she did; the face of a dead woman could not have been whiter than hers, GComicbooks.¢co