Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/122

 was as if her gaze burned into his flesh and set his blood on fire. Slowly Uriah grew confident again, believing that he had won and kept the soul of Leander unstained by the sin of desire that had damned his own father. Annie said nothing, for they never spoke of such things.

Six months after Leander first came to the cabin, a tenth child was born in the house where he lodged and there was no longer room for him. Nor was there any room in all the village save in the house of Annie and Uriah Spragg. He came there with his carpet-bag and tin trunk to live in the extra room, and after that there was no longer any peace in the house, but only smothered passion and hatred and jealousy. Uriah, more terrified than before, talked much and hysterically of their mission, saying that they must give themselves in chastity to God alone, looking neither to right nor to left. Leander devoured himself with desire and a sense of sin.

One night in midsummer when the heat and stillness of the country was intolerable, the three of them sat as usual in the single common room. It was Leander's turn to read the Scripture and he chose to read from the Song of Songs which is Solomon's, showing the Mutual Love of Christ and his Church. He plunged deep into the middle of it as if he had been reading it again and again and knew each verse, and he read in a loud and terrible voice shaken with his inward illness. Crying out, he read, 