Page:Fifty years hence, or, What may be in 1943 - a prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method (IA fiftyyearshenceo00grim).pdf/83

 —bright, upward-pouring golden torrents, wasting mind and matter at furious rate.

Fierce though the heat, which seemed to crisp my skin even at the distance at which I was stationed, it was nothing to the hot welling passions which assailed my inner self and drove me to despair. That fury of a woman scorned, than which hell no greater hath indeed, was as nothing to a man so baffled in ambition, which

Demoniac rage possessed my soul—I was frenzied to the verge of insanity, and as the crash of that roof-tree which had shielded the light of prophecy and covered my hopes, if but for so short a time, sent scintillations up and out, far and wide, I rushed from the excited scene, I knew not whither.

When I next recognized my surroundings, I found myself in a small, neat room, whitewalled and curtained—and Estelle's anxious face was bending over me. I had been ill a month, and my gaunt limbs and haggard features, which I insisted on seeing in a mirror,