Baroness Emma Orczy

I Will Repay Baroness Emma Orczy

The head of the house of Marny was at this time barely seventy years of age. But he had lived every hour, every minute of his life, from the day when the Grand Monarque gave him his first appointment as gentleman page in waiting when he was a mere lad, barely twelve years of age, to the moment-some ten years ago now-when Nature's relentless hand struck him down in the midst of his pleasures, withered him in a flash as she does a sturdy old oak, and nailed him- a cripple, almost a dotard-to the invalid chair which he would only quit for his last resting place.