Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
se.
BA A DREADFUL TEMPTATION. *—
CHAPTER ‘XVII. te
Xznin’s heart beat so fast at the sight of what Ninon was:
carrying that she could not move another step.
She had: to stand still with her hands clasped over her
throbbing side and wait till the girl came up to her.
Then: .
‘“Oh, Heaven, Ninon, where did you get that?’ she gasped,
looking at the shawl with eyes full of horror, yet atraid to
touch it, for it seemed like some dead thing. _
‘*Oh, ma‘ainselle,” faltered the girl, stopping short and
looking at Xenie’s anguished face. ‘‘ Oh, ma’amselle,” she
faltered again, and her pretty, piquant face grew white and
her black eyes sought the ground, for Ninon, although poor
and lowly, had a very tender heart, and she could not bear
to see the anguish in the eyes of her young mistress.
“*T asked. you where did you get that shawl?” Xenie re-
peated. ‘‘It was my sister’s shaw]. She woreit last night.
and now, to-day, she is missing. Did you know. that,
Ninon?”
‘“ Yes,” the girl answered, in her pretty, broken English.
She had heard it. A gentleman,a tourist, had brought the
news to the village, and the men were all out looking for
er. . ys
Would her mistress come to the house? She had some- :
thing to tell her, but not out there in the cold and wet. She
looked fit to drop, indeed she did, declared the voluble
young French girl.
So she half-led, half-dragged Mrs, St. John back to the
cottage and into the room where the stricken mother was.
waiting for tidings of her lost one.
The maid had a sorrowful story to tell.
The waves had cast a dead body up on the beach an hour : .
ago—the corpse of a woman, thinly dressed in white, with -
long, beautiful black hair flowing loosely and ‘tangled with
seaweed.
They could not tell who she was, for—and here Ninon
shuddered visibly—the rough waves had battered and
swollen her features utterly beyond recognition.
But they thought that she was young, for her limbs were. | |
white and round, and beautifully moulded, and this shawl
which Ninon carried had been tightly fastened about. her
shoulders. . -
The maid had recognized it and brought it with her t
show the bereaved mother and sister, and to ask if they
wished to go and view the body and try to identify it... ©.)
All this the maid told sorrowfully and hesitatingly, while
he two women sat like statues and listened to her, every.
vestige of hope dying out of their hearts at the pitiful story,
and at length Xenie cast herself down upon th
TR TEST
e wet shawl. | |