FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   >>  
ns he left the city and hastened to her side. His heart beat wildly as he paced with her in the moonlight up and down the terrace overlooking the river. It was early spring--just a year since her rescue from the island. Thronging memories surged in her heart, and kept her from noticing the silence of her companion, till at last he spoke. "Marguerite," he said, for he now called her by her name, at her own request, "I have to leave Paris to-morrow. There is hot work awaiting my sword in the south, and I must delay no longer." She turned to him in sudden alarm; the news was quite unexpected. "My friend--my brother," she said impulsively, "do not leave me! Not yet, not yet!" The moment had come. The love pent up in La Pommeraye's heart would be restrained no longer, and burst from him in a torrent of passionate words. She could not stop him now; it was too late. She stood pale and silent as he poured forth all the love and longing of those weary years. Her heart was moved with a great compassion for him; but when, encouraged by her silence, he touched her hand, she drew it suddenly from him. Before her rose the dead face of him who had been as truly her husband as if a priest had blessed their marriage; she felt once more the touch of her child's lips at her breast; she saw again that double grave on the lonely hillside so many thousand miles away. She had loved once, and her heart was dead and buried in that far-off grave. Life held no second love for her, henceforth there was nothing left her but the memory of that which once had been. But her friend, her only support and comfort, must she lose him too? Heaven was cruel indeed to her. She covered her face with her hands. "God help me!" she said shudderingly. "It cannot be." He thought she was relenting. In an instant he had taken her hands in his, while he pleaded passionately for time, for hope; no promise, only permission to spend his life in her service, only a word to carry with him on his journey. But she had regained her self-control, and spoke now with a quiet, sad decision that was as a death-knell to his heart. "My friend," she said, "I would have saved you this if I could. I have tried to spare you, and"--her voice trembled--"to spare myself. Hush," as he was about to interrupt, "it is because I do love you--though not in the way you wish--that I would have spared us both this parting. You are all I have left in the world--if I lose you, I am inde
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   >>  



Top keywords:
friend
 

longer

 

silence

 
lonely
 

covered

 

double

 

breast

 

henceforth

 

thousand

 

memory


support

 
Heaven
 

hillside

 
comfort
 
buried
 

decision

 

regained

 

control

 

parting

 

spared


interrupt

 

trembled

 

journey

 

instant

 

pleaded

 
relenting
 

shudderingly

 

thought

 

passionately

 

service


permission

 

promise

 
request
 

called

 

Marguerite

 

noticing

 

companion

 

morrow

 

turned

 

sudden


awaiting
 
surged
 

wildly

 

moonlight

 

hastened

 
terrace
 

overlooking

 
rescue
 
island
 

Thronging