A Struggle for a Ring — page 364: what you’re looking at

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

360 A SEPARATION DISCUSSED. could; if I cannot, then I must do my best. I will think it all over, and in twenty-four hours you shall have my answer. ” ‘‘Thank you, Ailie.” But, even as he spoke, he was half conscious of a strange kind of wonder whether she would say yes or no, _ and if it would be so perfectly impossible for him to love her as he had once believed. There is a wonderful charm in a great love, after all—it must win some return. She had gathered together all her powers of self-control before he had recovered himself. She knew that no pray- ers, no pleading, no wild outbursts of sorrow could avail her now, and a sweet, womanly dignity came to her. «J have twenty-four hours more,” she said, quietly; ‘I will pass them in thinking—I will not sleep ;. that would be to waste precicus moments. By this time to-morrow night we shall both know our fate, and then ‘*You are very good, Ailie,” he said, ‘‘and I wish with all my heart that everything had been different.” ‘‘T think we must go,” she said; ‘‘it is growing late, and I may have some difficulty in getting to my room.” He found himself, as he walked home, so gentle, so tender, so kind to her—he found himself saying, over and over again, ‘‘She loves me so dearly—she loves me so well!” He did not hurry through that walk as he had done through others; and, whenever he roused himself, he found himself thinking, not of beautiful Lady Ethel, but of how dearly his wife loved him. They reached the little side door through which he always entered ; it opened at once, and he saw that the house lay in silence and darkness. ‘You will be quite safe, Ailie,” he said; ‘‘it any one meets you in the house, it will not matter, you are sup- “ae comicbooks.