Vashti's Fate — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

~ . -_ > *. . . e — J « r6. ao eo | ~va t . . « V5 . *. « . "ae “4 —~ “ i = - é . ‘ y “ hee ~ . ~. 254 A STRANGE VOW. would have drawn herself gently away from him, but he would not suffer her—he held her fast. ‘‘My arms have hungered for you long, Vashti,” he said. ‘‘T cannot loose you so soon. ‘To own you I will sub- scribe to any conditions.” ‘But that is just it,” she said, lifting her head to look athim. ‘‘ You are not to own meatall. I will make myself your wife; you shall be my husband ; but we shall live on just as we have been living, strangers almost, save in the consciousness that each is beloved, and that we shall spend the Great Hereafter together, when there shall be nothing to separate us.” ‘But, my darling, I want you here.” Her arms were round his neck ; she laid her cheek against his, saying : ‘‘T want you, too; my heart aches for you; but I know, I know, when it was once over, when you and I were one indissolubly, I should fall away into the gloom of my na- ture, and—and you must know what would, what must in- evitably be the end of it all.” ‘““Why then marry me at all? Oh, I would save you from all that, Vashti, believe me I would, I could; and then, if the worst came in spite of us, my arms should pro- tect you from yourself.” She shuddered violently from head to foot, and starting from him, said, with her dark cheek changing to a grayish white : ‘‘Never! never! never! When I feel sanity forsaking my mind, I will die. Iam not coward enough to prefer life to freedom from the fangs of sucha doom. Choose now, for I will never offer even these wild conditions again. Marry me now, within the hour, or never!” (Ee) ; ~ a = . - + Pa ee . ‘ ‘a a9 : cs