Page:Frank Packard - The Miracle Man.djvu/250

 sudden, mirthless laugh—and once again swept his hand across his eyes. "We're going to beat it out of here now—to-night—to-morrow morning."

But now she had drawn further away from him—and there was a frightened look in her eyes, and her lips quivered pitifully.

"No—I can't—I can't," she cried out. "No, no—I can't—I can't go back to that."

"That! That—is love," he said wildly. "The only love you know. What more do you want? There's loot enough now, and—ha, ha!—that little contribution of Thornton's, to give you all the money you want. Love, Helena—you and I—the old love—you and I together again, Helena. I tell you I love—you do you hear? I love you—and I'll have you—I love you! What do you know, what do you care about any other kind of love!"

She looked at him, misery and fear still in her eyes, and her slight figure seemed to droop, and her hands hung heavy, listless, at her sides.

"I care"—the words came in a strange mechanical way from her lips. "Oh, I care. I can't—I won't go back to that. And I know—I know now. I have learned what love is."

Quick over Madison's face surged the red in an unstemmed tide—volcanic within him his love that he knew now possessed his very soul, jealousy that, blinding, robbed him of his senses, roused him to frenzy.

"Oh, you've learned what love is, have you—