Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/137

Rh anger was gone from his voice. I had frightened it away.

"Have you?" I asked scornfully. "You have treated me with such marked coldness, that even my maid, Marie, has been gossiping with the other servants about it."

Ah, I had made a mistake. I knew it the moment the words were out of my mouth.

"She has, has she?" he exclaimed in a towerngtowering [sic] rage. "She shall leave the house to-night. I will not pay a pack of drones to gossip about me. She shall go, and this minute, too."

"She shall not. If she leaves your house" (I was beside myself with rage and excitement, and was hardly accountable for what I said) "I will go too."

"Elsie!" There was actual fear in his voice. He looked so handsome as these varied emotions stirred him, that—alas! that I should say it—I felt that my indignation could not last mach longer. As he uttered my name, he looked at me earnestly, and with a pained, wearied gaze. I began to feel sorry for him. Despise me, readers,