Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/121

 supper, he could not send Leander away. Leander did stay and all through supper Annie sat modestly with eyes cast down while her brother and his friend talked of the church and of God.

After that Leander came more and more often, though there was little talk between him and Annie. Evening after evening she sat quietly apart in the darkness by the fireplace while the two men read the Scriptures and interpreted them. Sometimes she sat watching Leander's golden head from under her long lashes without being seen and sometimes when he was reading she stole sudden quick glances at his odd disturbing beauty. Always Uriah took care that the atmosphere should be saturated with the words of the Bible. He fought his battle in silence, filled with a corroding jealousy, knowing always that Leander was there because of Annie and not because of himself or of God. Craftily he chose to read and expound passages filled with sonorous warnings against unchastity, of the evils of the flesh and of desire. He read always in the cold tight voice of one in pain.

And presently Leander came to look ill. The high color left his cheeks and there was a tired look in his blue eyes. At night his visions and dreams grew more and more fantastic and troubled, filled with strange beasts like those out of the Apocalypse. Annie gave him pennyroyal tea to drink lest he be coming down with the fevers that swept the hot, damp prairies, and as he drank she watched him closely out of the green, veiled, slanting eyes. Leander knew now when she was watching him. It