Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/347

 "Say your prayers, young woman," he said, slowly. "You are going on a long journey from whence no traveler has yet returned."

She staggered and caught a chair, trembling and shivering.

"Frank, dear, have you gone mad?" she gasped.

"Yes, I went mad in this house one day at the sight of your devil's beauty, and I have been mad from that hour. Now we have come to the end."

"You will not kill me?" she begged, in piteous fear. "I cannot die; I am afraid. Surely you love me; you cannot"

He seized her wrists and she cowered with a scream. He held them in one hand and with the other swept her magnificent hair around her throat, grasped it in his iron fist, and thus choking her, thrust the shivering figure backward into the chair.

She managed to free her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and tried to smother him with kisses.

"Frank, dear, I'll love you. Surely you will not kill me. Have pity for all that I have been to you in the past"

"Hush," he said softly, putting his big hand over her full lips. "Why such childish terror? Love has its moments of sublime cruelty. This impulse to kill is only the awful desire for utter possession, the climax of love. I'll go with you. Neither life nor death shall take you from me."