Billy Bellew; A Novel (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1895 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIV BILLY MAKES HIS ESCAPE. It was not very much sleep that Billy Bellew obtained that night. When he reached his bedroom he felt quite sufficiently ill and exhausted to go to bed, and he did so; but he was far too broad awake to remain there; so, as soon as his man had left him, he rose, put on a smoking suit, dropped into an armchair before the fire, and sat for a long time staring vacantly at the glowing coals. At first he could not put any order into his thoughts; the one fact that Winifred was lost to him forever was all that he could realize. But by degrees many things became clear to him, and he wondered at the fatuity which had hitherto blinded him to what was so patent. How had he ever been insane enough to believe that Winifred would consent to be his wife? He had misunderstood her as completely as he had misunderstood Blanche Littlewood--only in an opposite sense. The woman whom he loved had offered him friendship; the woman whose friendship he would gladly have retained claimed love from him, and would take nothing less. It could not have been otherwise. They had obeyed their respective natures, and had acted as they were quite certain to act, under given circumstances. It was easy to understand that Winifred, whether she loved Kirby or not, would never allow herself to play the man false to whom she had plighted her troth. And most likely she would be happy with Kirby, even though she might not be actually in love with him. "Shethinks so much more of other people's happiness than she does of her own," sighed Billy, " that, so long as he is contented, she won't ask for any thing else. She is like that--one or two people in the world are like that, 1 suppose." He himself, little as he suspected it, was not so very unlike that, and it was...