Gloriana; or, the revolution of 1900Dixie, Florence, Lady
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Gloriana; or, the revolution of 1900
Dixie, Florence, Lady
Speculative fiction; Utopias -- Fiction; Women's rights -- Fiction
He sees this at once, and turns away with a bitter, despairing cry. It
was a mad, vain hope to have indulged in, and yet in his breaking heart,
Evie Ravensdale had prayed to be allowed to look upon her face once
more, ay, even though it were in death.
An exclamation from Flora for a moment attracts him. She has followed
him and has turned the body over.
“Evie!” she cries, and there is a passionate ring of triumph in her
voice, “though Gloria be dead, her pure, fair fame is saved. Though God
has taken her, He has dashed to the ground the foul lie with which they
sought to doom her. Look, Evie, look! Her noble name is cleared.”
With a startled, eager look he comes to her side. He sees at his feet
the pallid upturned face of a dead man. This man has dark hair, and a
dark thick beard, moustache and whiskers in which grey hairs are
stealing fast. This man has dark eyes, but the lustre of life has left
them, and his white teeth are clenched together with a horrid grin.
He stares down at the corpse below him. The wild, hungry look in his
beautiful eyes is dying now. Triumph and exultation are there.
“Gloria!” he cries, “my darling, you have triumphed. They thought they
could kill you with a false and awful lie. There is your answer. Nor
shall your great cause die. I swear to win it for you! I swear—I swear
it now!”
He turns away with a gasping sob. But Flora has no longer any fear for
him. Evie Ravensdale’s vow will bid him live, live on for Gloria’s sake.
Calmly and quietly she turns to the sailors. “We will carry that body to
Dorlin, my lads. Guard it well. There lies the man whom a too confident
jury declared to be dead, for whose murder the noblest of women was
unjustly condemned. That corpse is Lord Westray!”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
The blinds are drawn down in the single window of a small bedroom that
overlooks a narrow, dull, and dingy street, not far removed from
Trafalgar Square. The room, though clean, bears a poverty-stricken look,
for in it, in addition to the bed, there are only two chairs, an old
table, and a dilapidated sofa with a thin rug covering it. There is a
small washhand-stand in this room besides the other articles named, but
this is all.
Lying on the bed is a large-eyed, pale, emaciated young man, upon whose
face is unmistakably written the sign of death. His thin hands, in which
the blue veins show prominently clear, lie listlessly on the coverlet,
though now and again the feeble fingers twitch nervously thereat, and a
hectic flush covers his pale cheeks. His large hollow eyes have a
brilliant, shining look in them, and they appear to be fixed on the door
of the room which stands slightly ajar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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