“I think you are the most bewitchingly perverse little body in all creation; but your very perverseness charms and fascinates me. Girl, you were bewitching in health and strength; but by my life, you’re a hundred times more so now! Why, I just long to do something to shield and protect you. It makes me feel a hundred times stronger than usual to see you pale and weak. You had the face of a flower, but now you have the face of an angel!”
“Oh, Bart, you’re too extravagant in your flattery!”
“It’s no flattery, Elsie, dear.”
But of a sudden she saw a cloud stealing over his face as he gazed upon her.
“What is it?” she asked, quick to feel every changing mood of his.
“Oh, nothing—nothing,” he answered; but after a moment he embraced her and held her as if fearful that she would slip away from him.
It was in truth this fear which had found lodgment in his heart. For the first time he had been seized by a feeling of apprehension lest he might lose her ere she could become wholly his. What was this strange weakness that had come upon her and clung to her in spite of everything? Always she had seemed a bit ethereal, as if not wholly of this world; and now a singular, terrifying fancy took hold of Bart. It seemed to him that some envious lover of the spirit world had laid claim to her and was seeking to win her from him. His active fancy pictured this unseen lover slowly but surely drawing her to him.
As this fancy ran through his mind Bart was silent, but of a sudden he hoarsely cried:
“He shall not have you!”
Elsie was startled.