Thrice Wedded, but Only Once a Wife — page 206: what you’re looking at

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

THRICE WEDDED, 197 CHAPTER XXXV. ' FURTHER DISCLOSURES. When their boisterous joy had subsided a little, Alfred Ellertou turned again to his wife and said: ‘‘My love, your story was rather unceremoniously inter- rupted. If you feel equal to it, I would like to hear how you spent all those long years, after you gave up our boy.” There was a tenderness in his voice, as he pronounced the words ‘‘our boy,” that brought the tears to Ralph’s eyes, and, seeking his mother’s side again, he remained a rapt listener while she continued her tale. “T lived,” she said, ‘‘most of the time quite comfortably by the effort of my needle. But sometimes, when too ill _ to work, I was very destitute. I left Naples and went into a quiet village, where the people were kind and friendly, and after a while my life became quite peaceful, but, oh, so lonely. | ‘Finally a long and weary sickness unfitted me for labor of any kind, and I resolved to return to my native land and make one last appeal to Ralph. ‘T had not quite money enough to defray my expenses, so | pawned everything but a few necessary articles and the precious brooch. ‘‘T went to him, and the result you know, as you say you heard all that passed between us. When I fled from him that day, I thought my heart was breaking. I felt so friendless, homeless, and so weary of life, that I longed to die and be at rest. The last I remembered, as I wandered through the streets of the city, was falling heavily upon the pavement, believing that I was dying. When I again re- covered consciousness 1t was far into the night, and the woman in whose care you say you had left me was bending kindly over me, I-asked her whereI was and what was the matter. She told me that I had fainted in the street, and a gentleman had brought me there inacab. — *T remembered all then, and somewhat anxiously felt in my bosom for my treasnred pictures. Imagine my grief and indignation when I found they were gone, All I pos- comicbooks GO)