Helbeck of Bannisdale — Volume II by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 23 of 279 (08%)
page 23 of 279 (08%)
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can do it."
He exclaimed: "No, you can't."--His voice had a note of which he was unconscious, a note that increased the girl's fear of him.--"Not unless you let me take you. And I suppose you'd sooner die than put up with another hour of me!--The sands are dangerous. You can ask them." He nodded towards the men in the distance. She put a force on herself, and smiled. "Why shouldn't you take me? But go and look at the inn first--please!--I'm very tired. Then come and report." She settled herself on a seat, and drew a little white shawl about her. From its folds her small face looked up softened and beseeching. He lingered--his mind half doubt, half violence, He meant to force her to listen to him--either now, or in the morning. For all her scorn, she should know, before they parted, something of this misery that burnt in him. And he would say, too, all that it pleased him to say of that priest-ridden fool at Bannisdale. She seemed so tiny, so fragile a thing as he looked down upon her. An ugly sense of power came to consciousness in him. Coupled with despair, indeed! For it was her very delicacy, her gentlewoman's grace--maddeningly plain to _him_ through all the stains of the steel works--that made hope impossible, that thrust him down as her inferior forever. |
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