The Belgrave mystery : a novel / Treve Roscoe.

  • Roscoe, Treve.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Belgrave mystery : a novel / Treve Roscoe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/100 (page 68)
    “ I have always loved you— from the first, I think.” “ And yet I have kept you waiting all this time.” “ Ah, it was for your sake— yours. T wanted you to be sure—quite, quite sure. I am a woman whom tragedy seems to follow. I bring misery to those I care for most. I carry jt, and put it into their very hands.” She seemed lost in painful retrospect. “ That man Lexoff haunts me. 1 seem at times nothing but his tool. He frightens me. You do not understand. How should you ? Oh, my dear one, are you still—sure—sure ? ” “ Dearest, be content—I am sure.” The fervour of his tone re- assured her—perhaps, too, it reassured him—for his face lost something of its lines of weari- ness and care, seeing which, she smiled more happily. He went with her into her pretty flower-bedecked rooms, and they talked for a long hour happily enough—busy with plans, touching lightly on the future, where both were con- scious as of some spectre that lurked in the background and dimmed the sunlight. CHAPTER XVIII Egerton awoke the following morning to the realization that his Hfe had in the last few hours undergone a complete metamorphose, that not only was he an engaged m.an at last, but that his wedding-day was fixed, and imminent. It had been decided that they should go to Berlin, be married at the Embassy there, and take their hone3mioon through some of the old Continental cities which had charmed his earlier manhood. He could hardly have told, had there been any one to ques- tion him, how it had all come to be so decided. Last night had been the spark to tinder, shriveUing up every considera- tion of prudence in a fierce flame. He was not sorry. As he had truly said, he was not the kind of man who, having put his hand to the plough, permitted himself any backward look at the unfurrowed fields. His soberer mood suggested diffi- culties, tiresome explanations from which his saner self re- coiled. Liberty had been his for so many years, and though these bonds were sweet, still— Well, doubtless all men felt much the same on the eve of matrimony. Even old Jack, in the midst of his lover’s rapture,