The rotten
slabs of the wood-work cracked under her light weight. She breathed hard,
and her face was as pale as the shadows on driven snow; in another moment
she sank down upon the bench beside John, and sat there, staring vacantly
out at the sunlight. Harrington felt her gentle presence close to him and
at last looked up; every feature of his strong face seemed changed in the
convulsive fight that rent his heart and soul to their very depths; the
enormous strength of his cold and dominant nature rose with tremendous
force to meet and quell the tempest of his passion, and could not; dark
circles made heavy shadows under his deep-set eyes, and his even lips,
left colorless and white, were strained upon his clenched teeth.
"God help me--I love you."
That was all he said, but in his words the deep agony of a mortal struggle
rang strangely--the knell of the old life and the birth-chime of the new.
One by one, the words he had never thought to speak fell from his lips,
distinctly; the oracle of the heart answered the great question of fate in
its own way.
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