Excerpt from Cherry Ripe! A Romance, Vol. 3 of 3 Then Philip, turning with a violent start, saw standing at a few paces from him Mignon. She was very pale, her hands were clasped tightly together - so much he gathered in the space of a moment but he had not looked at her, he felt that he dared not, that more ter rible to him than any other sight upon earth might be to him the answer to the question asked by his eyes. The formal introduction over, he did not stir, he could not; but all at once he became conscious that a little hand, cold as his own, was touching his and then with a mighty effort he took it, and looked up. She would not have given him her hand thus had she known all her husband had evidently told her nothing, and in her eyes as yet he was not the thing accursed that he had schooled himself to believe that he was. Nevertheless the touch of her hand seemed to scorch him he relinquished it with haste, and turned to Flora. I did not know that you were the sister of Mr. Montrose, he said, in a strangely dull. 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.