Page:The silent prince - a story of the Netherlands (IA cu31924008716957).pdf/198



the rest of that long night Colonel Van Straalen did not dare to close his eyes in slumber. The thought that some living being was in his vicinity disquieted him. He stirred the fire again and sat down before the glowing embers. He thought of Katharine La Tour. Should he ever see her sweet face again? Yes, perhaps in far off years, when she had become a Sister of some Order, as far removed from him as heaven from earth. “By all that was right and true, she should have been mine!”’ he said half aloud. But now! She was his as a dream might be, something intangible, something he possessed but could not hold. Her sweet face seemed to mock him from out the firelight, like a ghost of the past, and the echo of her musical laugh seemed borne to his ears on the night wind. He realized as never before the power of love, and his heart grew sick as he set this ecstasy over against the misery and loneliness which stretched before him like a desert. 188