Page:Frank Packard - The Miracle Man.djvu/248

 And now a tinge of color came to Helena's cheeks, and the brown eyes raised, and flashed, and dropped.

"He went to try and find help," she said. "He was out all night in the storm. I do not know how far he must have walked. I know the nearest house was five or six miles away—and there was no horse there—the man had driven to some town that morning. It was almost daylight before Mr. Thornton at last came back with a team. We were forty miles from here—we sent the team to the nearest town for gasoline and then motored back." She stopped—and then, with a catch in her voice: "He—he was very good to me."

"Good to me"—the words seemed to stab at Madison, seemed to ring in his ears and goad him with a fiercer jealousy—and her story of the night, what she had been saying, save those words, was as nothing, meant nothing, was swept from his consciousness—and only she, standing there before him, glorious, maddening in her beauty, remained. Soul, mind and body leaped into fiery passion—she was his, and his she always would be—those eyes, those lips, the white throat, those perfect arms to cling about his neck—and all of heaven and hell and earth were naught beside her.

"I love you!"—his face was white, his words fierce-breathed, almost incoherent—and he leaned toward her with a sudden, uncontrollable movement, his arms sweeping out to clasp her.