Beadle's Dime Novels No. 14 — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

84 THE EMERALD NECKLACE. made no sign of having heard the question. For half an hour he worked on; then threw down his pallet and brushes, exclaiming— “Speak to me, dear Clematis, I beg of you. Your silence is so hard to bear. If you are really she whom I love, allow me to tell you again”—but she had vanished,—his eloquence relapsed into dreamy silence. For several days this bewildering experience. was continued. Every morning Pennon painted upon the portrait—every morning his sitter came to him, obeyed his instructions, smiled upon him, looked happy, but never spoke; and whenever he attempted to approach her, or implored her to explain to him the mystery of her going and coming, she arose and left him. She always went out by the door and down the stairs like any ordindry mortal, but after she had reached the avenue he could trace her no farther. Once, indeed, he had followed her down to the river-bank; but there she had turned and made a gesture, imploring him to follow her no farther, and he had turned back at her bidding. Pennon was half dis- © tracted by this tantalizing phantom—if phantom it were— sometimes fearing that his mind was affected, yet if it were, he had never worked so well when he was sane. The por- trait was a masterpiece of art, astonishing in the exquisite beauty of its coloring and the impassioned life of its expres- sion—it was all that a portrait could be. Tt was finished at last; Pennon could invent no further ex- cuse for another touch. He was wretched at the thought, for he felt assured that he should see no more of Clematis. And, strange as it may seem, he had grown so infatuated -with her silent beauty, her quiet presence in his chamber, smiling, radiant, delicately robed, that he loved her better thus than ever before. Frequently came back to his mind memories of that time when he had sat in the old-fashioned parlor of her father’s house, painting, listening to. her voice, regarding her household ways, and learning to love her. He had been en- chanted then, but he was enthralled now. He had many strange fancies about her visits. At times he imagined that she was playing some pretty trick upon him, and he would humor her whim in it; again, that paralysis of her powers of ‘speech had returned upon her, and that she had come to comiiclooks.com