Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/243

Rh "You are too sensitive. It was only a trick of your imagination, you let it run away with you. If you are not careful you will be ill; then what shall I do?"

She came closer to me still.

"Save me! You will save me!"

It was like the pleading of a frightened child. The contact of her person with mine set me shivering, too; it was as if I were thrilling with a delicious pain.

"At present there is nothing from which to save you. When there is, I'll not be wanting, rest assured."

"Put your arm about me." I did as I was told, wondering if she were mad, or I. "How is it that I only feel safe when I am close to you—and the closer the safer?"

"It is because God is very good to me."

"To you? God is good to you?"

"Has He not put it into your heart to feel safe with me?"

"You think so? Take your arm away. I am better now. I am not—not such a coward. You think it is God who has put it into my heart to feel safe with you. I wonder!"

"I am sure."

"You are a strange man."

"I pray that you may not always think so."