Miriam Monfort - A Novel by Catherine A. Warfield
page 91 of 567 (16%)
page 91 of 567 (16%)
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promised me." I smiled tearfully this time.
He bounded off the bench, interrupting me with a low cry. "Do not mock me, Miriam Monfort," he exclaimed, "if you can do no better. My God! a baby of five years old suggested as a wife by you, my idol! Oh, yes, wildly-beloved Miriam, the noblest, truest, as I have ever thought you--the most beautiful, too, surely, of all God's created beings!" and he caught my hand wildly. "George, you are dreaming," I said; "your vivid fancy misleads you utterly. I am not beautiful--you cannot think so; no one has ever thought me so; you must not say such an absurd thing of me. It only humiliates me. But I do believe I still deserve your esteem. Let us separate now, and to-morrow come to me in a better mood." "If I _must_ give you up," he murmured, in a low, grieved voice, "let it be to a husband who loves and appreciates you--is worthy of you. I cannot tell you all I know--_have heard;_ but of this I am certain: Claude Bainrothe loves you not! It is Evelyn he worships, and you are blind not to see it; Evelyn who has goaded him almost to madness already for her own purposes. I heard--but no, I cannot tell you this; I ought not--honor forbids;" and he laid his hand on his boyish breast, in a tragic, lofty manner, all his own, that almost made me smile. "I know, I know all this, dear George," I said. "Claude Bainrothe addressed Evelyn before he knew me, and she refused him. Nor have I craved the honor, this is all that can be said as yet, of being her successor." I faltered here. "Let this satisfy you for the present. He has not spoken to me." |
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