Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/90

 word to-day—one little word, I would have thrown myself at his feet and said, 'O Frank, I love you—I've never ceased loving you. Oh! take me back and let us forget all this miserable mistake.' Frank!" She raised her head and shook back the rich, soft hair impatiently, and stretched longing arms out to the empty silence. "Frank," she whispered more loudly, "why don't you come to me? Why don't you feel I want you as—as surely—sometimes—you want me. Frank—"

She rose unsteadily, supporting herself by one hand that rested on the back of the couch.

Her face had grown strangely white, her eyes had a look of intensity that spoke of strained mental force. "If I dared go to him," she said, still in that strange whisper. "I've never said I was wrong—or—or sorry, but I am, Frank—God knows I am. Don't drive me desperate; I'm too unhappy and too reckless to be always patient. But if you swear you never loved any other woman, Frank, I—I will swear I never loved or thought of any man save you. Never, dear heart—never."

Still with that strained look, intense and far off as that of a sleep walker, still with face deathlike in its rigid whiteness, she moved across the room. The loose shower of hair seemed to annoy her by its weight. She paused an instant before the table and took up a curious-looking silver dagger.