"I love Marion," she breathed softly. "I would help you--I would help
her--if I could." For a moment her pale beautiful face was filled with a
light that might have shone from the face of an angel, "Don't you
understand?" she continued, scarcely above a whisper. "I have been
Strang's one great love--his life--until Marion came into his heart. I
have lost--you have lost--but mine is the more bitter because Marion
loves you, and Strang--"
With a cry Nathaniel sprang to her side. The candle fell from his hand,
sputtered on the floor, and left them in darkness.
"Marion loves me! You say that Marion loves me?"
The woman's voice came to him in a whisper filled with the sweetness of
sympathy.
"She said so to-night--in this room. She told me that she loved you as
she never thought that she could love a man in this world. O, my God, is
that not a balm for your heart, if it is broken? And Strang--my
Strang--has forgotten his love for me!"
Nathaniel reached out his arms. They found the woman and for a time he
held her hands in his, while a great silence fell upon them. He could
hear the sobbing of her breath and as her fingers tightened about his
own his heart seemed bursting with its hatred of this man who called
himself a prophet of God; a hatred that burned furiously even as his
being throbbed with the wild joy of the words he had just heard.
"Where is Marion?" he pleaded.
"I don't know," replied the woman. "They took her away alone. The
others have gone to the temple.
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