The American Marquis by Nick Carter — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

ae eae THE AMERICAN MARQUIS. nis Why not give her up? Why not tear loose from this great _ love which so enthralled him? Give her up? The very thought made him turn with savage fury to the icture of the vile creature who could plot his murder, and jin the same instant lavish on him such kisses and caresses as melted his very soul into hers. And yet, even then, he loved this sweet Grace of his. Even then he was as much her mad worshiper as now. Was he unlike other men, that he should start from his dream of love for an angel of purity, and fling himself, with hot words and passionate impulse, into the arms of the first seductive siren who crooked her finger at him? limb from limb, had I you in my clutches!” _ Was this love that was in him, or was it insanity? ‘¢ Great Heaven?’ he exclaimed; ‘‘ what is it? What am I? Who wasshe? Whence this sudden power over me?” Over and over he trod the same ground. __At one moment his gray eyes were blazing with the fires of hate; at another melting with love’s soft light. One by one the days went by, stopping neither for his aes love nor his hate. And as each day passed, and another came, Clinton won- dered he was not mad. And each morning, as jaded and weary, he found himself irresistibly drawn toward the object of his love, he would _ say to himself: “This shall be the last time. To-morrow I will go.” And the moment her soft blue eyes searched his; the mo- ment her sweet voice bade him welcome; the moment her little hand rested confidingly in his, that moment he was lost to everything but her love and his. Was his love? Well, be it love or madness, it controlled him, strong- willed man as he was, as if he had been a nerveless child. Three days he had yet. And Clinton, at midnight, after one of his terrible battles with himself, sat, asking himself: ‘What shall I do then? To- morrow, and the next day, and the next. Shall I be dead? Shall T be chained up in a mad-house, a raving maniac? Shall I dishonor myself and her by asking her to be my wife? My wife! oh, hideous mockery! My leman! Woman! fiend! I could ‘tear you ~-Eomichooks.com