The Dugdale Millions — page 279: what you’re looking at

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

IN IMMINENT PERIL, 269 leap over the rail to the rocks below. A train thun- dering out of the tunnel, with a screaming whistle, put an end to the idea and gave her, while its noise lasted, an opportunity to repossess herself. Merrimount, finding that he had obtained an advantage, pursued it. “IT have not affronted you, have J?’’ he asked, smil- ing tenderly upon her. ‘‘No,’’ Wallis replied, but in such low accents that he could but barely hear her. ‘‘And I do have the right to say to you that I love you and that almost from the beginning I have loved you?’’ He looked to her for some response, but none was mace, “It, 1s true,” he went.on, “I ‘did mot know how deeply I did love you until after I had parted from you and realized how much I missed your bright presence. And then I made up my mind to come back so that I could tell you of it.’’ Still Wallis could not find that tongue usually so ready with sharp retort and quaint conceit. She had been humbled too much in her own estimation to recover quickly, and was too busy with thinking how absurd she had been in thus presuming to lecture the man, who was so earnestly pleading his own cause with her, for somethmg of which he was not guilty. She was not then, by any means, the frolicsome sprite. Though she would not answer, Merrimount guessed why, and was determined that he would not let her escape. ‘“‘Am I to understand that my suit finds no favor with you? Or may I take silence for the consent I so much desire?”’ ‘‘Oh, no, no, no!’’ cried Wallis hastily, refusing to be carried away in so summary a manner. ‘‘Do you mean to tell me,’’ he persisted, ‘‘that you have no regard for me?’’ “No, I do not mean that,’’ replied Wallis, looking first on one side and then the other for a way to escape. “Then you do like me?’’ ‘‘No—yes—oh, I don’t know what I mean,’’ cried C@ 3 Comicbookk<s