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Penny Dreadfuls, 1890 · page 118 of 297

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Weaker than a Woman — page 118: Penny Dreadfuls, 1890

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a —s- . * * ~ * a 7 e nl = J « ~ ” ee > a mM 7 ieee “> er i lh) ee oe eee Se ms : ae may % See eS eae ox a > uy 7 so? , ° - " ; ra - F : - . ~~ @ . , _ - - : . ‘ ‘ 7 Bg WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. 109 her hands to him, but started at the touch of his; they burned her like fire. “You are making yourself ill, Felix,” she said. “Til!” he repeated—and his laugh was more terrible to her than any words. ‘ How would you feel, Violet, had any one tried to tear the living, beating heart from your body ? Oh, my darling, tell me it is not true—tell me so, for Heaven’s sake! Say that it is false—that they persuaded — you, urged you, wrote without your knowledge! Speak to me quickly, for 1am going mad!” She was only a woman—at the very best a weak one— and she loved even after the weak fashion in which some women love. She could not endure the sight of. his pain. She dared not tell him the truth; she did what weak women so often do—she temporized. “TIT thought it best, Felix, to—give you some. years free that you might work the better. I should not like to be a burden to you.” : He drew a deep breath, like one relieved from an intoler- able load, from an unbearable pain. “Is that all? Oh, my darling, my generous, noble Violet, is that all? I will not reproach you. But why have you given me this terrible fright? I have been almost dead. I am fifty years older with these hours of terrible pain. Why did you not tell me, sweet, what you dreaded? There is nothing to fear, Violet. I am so strong when I think of you that I could work by night and by day yet never feel fatigued. Such love as mine puts nerve into a man’s right arm. Oh, Violet sweet, you need not fear! You shall have a home as beautiful as love can make it. You shall have a life so easy and so free from care that when it ends you will look back in wonder to see how it has passed. You shall never know pain or fatigue that I can save you from. You shall be served and waited upon and attended to unceasingly.”’ She made him no answer, but her hands touched his gently. “A burden!” he repeated. “ You were afraid of being a burden to me! Oh, Violet, life of my life, I ought to laugh at you! Sweet burden that I would fain carry until — death claims me! Would to Heaven that the time were: near when I could make the dear burden all mine!” Still she had not the courage to look at him and say, “I love you, but I love riches better—I have chosen them in- stead of you.” She had not the courage to say it in that hour. She was frightened even to remember it,s Bis =e & EComiecbooks..