Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/131

Rh Arthur said nothing. He took my hands quickly in his. I looked at him; his face was ghastly in its whiteness. His lips were as bloodless as his cheeks. His fingers were icy. I shrank back, from him. My excitement disappeared as rapidly as it had come. I sat beside him limp and subdued.

"Elsie," said Arthur, presently, in a broken voice. "I—I must be an awful wretch."

He put his hand before his eyes; I could see the tears trickling through his slender, white fingers. My heart reproached me. Why, oh, why was I born emotional? A plague upon emotional women, one and all, say I.

"You are not—you are not," I murmured, "I am to blame after all. Don't mind what I said, dear. It is this scene, and this—this hour which have affected me. I—I could not sleep—I—"

Arthur again took my hands in his. In his eyes, as he fixed them upon my face, I saw "a something" that sent a thrill of ecstatic bliss through my heart. He leaned forward, and pressed a kiss—warm and tender—upon my