A Charmed Life by Richard Harding Davis
page 17 of 18 (94%)
page 17 of 18 (94%)
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the others, and Miss Armitage and he ran down the lawn to the rocks, and
stood with the waves whispering at their feet. It was the moment for which each had so often longed, with which both had so often tortured themselves by living in imagination, that now, that it was theirs, they were fearful it might not be true. Finally, he said: "And the charm never failed! Indeed, it was wonderful! It stood by me so obviously. For instance, the night before San Juan, in the mill at El Poso, I slept on the same poncho with another correspondent. I woke up with a raging appetite for bacon and coffee, and he woke up out of his mind, and with a temperature of one hundred and four. And again, I was standing by Capron's gun at El Caney, when a shell took the three men who served it, and only scared ME. And there was another time--" He stopped. "Anyway," he laughed, "here I am." "But there was one night, one awful night," began the girl. She trembled, and he made this an added excuse for drawing her closer to him. "When I felt you were in great peril, that you would surely die. And all through the night I knelt by the window and looked toward Cuba and prayed, and prayed to God to let you live." Chesterton bent his head and kissed the tips of her fingers. After a moment he said: "Would you know what night it was? It might be curious if I had been--" "Would I know!" cried the girl. "It was eight days ago. The night of the twelfth. An awful night!" "The twelfth!" exclaimed Chesterton, and laughed and then begged her |
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