The American Marquis by Nick Carter — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ate 98 HE AMERICAN MARQUIS. Left alone, Clinton’s face dropped its jovial expression } and fell into the old stern lines. 1 ““More trophies! Well, at least my task iseasy now. I | have them all in my grasp, every one. And one by one I | will tighten the pressure on them until they all shall cry © for mercy. ; ‘‘Grace, too. The gentle, loving, innocent Grace!” His mocking laughter was more fearful than his wildest denunciations had ever been. ‘“ How she has held the chords of my heart in her hand! And the tender, seductive tune she has played on them! «<The blood- thirsty tigress! She sends a man to his death with a purr of divinest love. Inhuman wretch, how IT will punish you! How I will gloat over your sufferings! Kvery heart-pang of mine shall vibrate tenfold to your - anguish. «< How I hate you! ‘© How I love you! ** How I loathe you, scorn you, despise you! *« How I cling to you, worship you. | _ *T never loved you more than now. It is my punish- ment, perhaps. “T long to sit by your side and drink in the honey of _ your words! to revel in the soft, seductive glance of your heavenly blue eyes. ““IT am eager to put you onthe rack of fear, to tear your —— . res. + Sige tee Sh aa take chal Da tiiadls a i cE PG AE TP es Mey, art omens! + 5 soul with agony, to haunt you with specters of your past. «As I would have spent my life in proving my love, had you been the angel you seem, so I will now spend my life in inventing tortures for your cruel heart. “Ah, I can reach it, incredible as may be its wickedness and harshness. I will so study you that your waking hours shall be one long dream of horrors and your sleeping mo- ments ages of anguish. ‘* Your slave I am, for I love you still. Your executioner I will be, for I hate you.’ Eomirecbooks.com