The American Marquis by Nick Carter — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

/ 98 sss THE AMERICAN MARQUIS. | that an awful stru ggle for composure was going on beneath the fixed lines of that stern face. Ihe broad chest heaved with convulsive irregularity, and _ the nervous hands were clinched in death-like fixity. ) A groan at last broke from his lips, white from the close - compression. “Ay!” he muttered, ‘‘struggle, man—struggle, devil! ey Devil have it! __ “It was here—this the very spot—that I stood and held her soft white hands in mine. Cr azy with the intoxicating love that filled my soul, I could have laid down my life for her with joy. Ay! only sorry that I had not fifty lives to ae: give for as many minutes of the blissof her presence. She said she loved me.” A faint cry as if he were strangling broke from him. ** At that my heart well-nigh burst with the happiness it ; could not hold. ‘“Ay! and ay! Every word of it will I recall. Hyvery word, though each one sears my heart as with fire.” The gray eyes blazed'with fury, and the lips PRES in agonized writhing. — <Tlove you,’ she said. ‘Ilove you.’ Oh! the music of the words. | ‘Here, right here, I stood. She there. Her hands on ~ my two shoulders. Oh, Heaven! ‘¢ Her bosom pressed to mine, her breath rising to my face _ like incense to a deity. } ‘‘And then in a delirium of love that whirled my whole being into Paradise, I felt her lips against mine. «« Here, right here, she said it. ‘I love you.’ «« Here, right here, she pressed her lips to mine. Ay; let me repeat the words; ‘1 love you. | I love ou. : <<Let me remember that kiss! Let me not forget how I loved her then. © Ah! woman, woman! Better for you had your tongue rotted off at its roots ere those words were spoken, better’ that vitriol had eaten those lips ere they pressed mine in warm embrace.’ A sudden freezing calm succeeded this wild and turions | tirade. Rising to his full height and lifting aloft his right a arm a solemn grandeur, he Bowl spoke: w* comicbooks.com °