Page:Curwood--The Courage of Captain Plum.djvu/220

 The candle fell from his hand, sputtered on the floor, and left them in darkness.

"Marion loves me! You say that Marion loves me?"

The woman's voice came to him in a whisper filled with the sweetness of sympathy.

"She said so to-night—in this room. She told me that she loved you as she never thought that she could love a man in this world. O, my God, is that not a balm for your heart, if it is broken? And Strang—my Strang—has forgotten his love for me!"

Nathaniel reached out his arms. They found the woman and for a time he held her hands in his, while a great silence fell upon them. He could hear the sobbing of her breath and as her fingers tightened about his own his heart seemed bursting with its hatred of this man who called himself a prophet of God; a hatred that burned furiously even as his being throbbed with the wild joy of the words he had just heard.

"Where is Marion?" he pleaded.