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Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915

"Phantom Fortune, a Novel"

Smithson, until they met a
year later in the beaten tracks of society.


CHAPTER XLV.
'THAT FELL ARREST, WITHOUT ALL BAIL.'

It was the beginning of August before Lesbia was pronounced equal to the
fatigue of a long journey; and even then it was but the shadow of her
former self which returned to Fellside, the pale spectre of joys
departed, of trust deceived.
Maulevrier had been very good to her, patient, unselfish as a woman, in
his ministering to the broken-hearted girl. That broken heart would be
whole again, no doubt, in the future, as many other broken hearts have
been; but the grief, the despair, the sense of hopelessness and
aimlessness in life were very real in the present. If the picturesque
seclusion of Fellside had seemed dull and joyless to Lesbia in days gone
by, it was much duller to her now. She was shocked at the change in her
grandmother, and she showed a good deal of feeling and affection in her
intercourse with the invalid; but once out of her presence Lady
Maulevrier was forgotten, and Lesbia's thoughts drifted back into the
old current.


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