Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/339

329 She sank down upon a box with a laugh. "I feel quite tired, like as if I had walked for miles," she said, lifting her damp hair from her forehead as she spoke.

Malachy leant forward, "I feel as if you had been lost and I had just found you," he whispered; then saw upon her brow—almost across her eyes—the vivid wound of a knotted whip lash. "My God!" he cried, his face changing. "Has he done that? Where is he?"

Nora started to her feet. She had never seen him so angry. She put her hand upon his arm to keep him. "Let him be," she said; "it is no use worrying. I am all right—it does not hurt. He was very angry because I would not go at once for my performance."

"Nora!" He grasped her hands in his. "Nora, leave it all, leave it all! It is no marriage of God's that keeps you tied to that brute. You do not love or honour him; he does not love or cherish you. My little Irish sweetheart, I have loved you beyond all telling since you were a tiny child."

Nora drew her hands away. "Do not dare to talk to me like that, or I shall hate you," she