Excerpt from Her Face Was Her Fortune, Vol. 3 of 3 The servants had gone to bed, and Mrs. Mer rick was still brooding over the old story before the blackened ashes in the fire-grate - possibly had grown weary, and was dozing over the facts which had at first startled her equanimity. She was getting in years, and love stories even love troubles - were not likely to interfere materially with old habits, one of which was a comfortable half-dreamy state at the fireside before retiring to rest. There was no one to interfere with Helena's progress towards a side door which opened upon the grounds. There had been no obstruction in the way of Val's entry to the garden, and it seemed easy for Helena to follow and heaf all the bad news. She was as sure it was bad news as she was standing there, a timid woman half afraid to venture further - half disposed to think that she had been dreaming, or that her wild thoughts had conjured up a vision, had it not been for the reminiscence, painful and awe-inspiring, of a wan face upturned to the window light. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.