Page 196 (1/1)
She clasped her hands and lifted theana's breast
"You will let me have el of mercy, unlike any other woman I ever saw--so white and pure and sweet!--you understand it all! In his dreadful weakness and loneliness, God gives hih to care for him and attend upon him I have no money,--perhaps he has none either, but I ork to keep him,--I am clever at e to earn enough for us both" Her voice broke in a sob, and Morgana, the tears falling from her own eyes, drew her into a close eain-"His wife!--I -woman--then no one can forbid ood priest to say the ive us God's benediction--it willto him, because he cannot know or understand,--but to me it will be a holy sacrament!"
Then she broke down and wept softly till the pent-up passion of her heart was relieved, and Morgana,her own e back fro from her bed, she looked up with an anxious appeal in her lovely eyes
"Let ain"--she said--"It is so terrible--the earthquake"
"Yes, yes, do not think of it now"--said Morgana, hastily, afraid that her mind would wander into painful mazes of recollection--"That is all over"
"Ah, yes! But you should know the truth! It was NOT an earthquake!" she persisted--"It was not God's doing! It was HIS work!"
And she indicated by a gesture the next rooer Seaton lay
A cold horror ran through Morgana's blood HIS work!--the widespread ruin of villages and townships,--the devastation of a vast tract of country--the deaths of hundreds of men, women and little children--HIS work? Could it be possible? She stood transfixed,--while Manella went on-"I knoas his work!" she said--"I arned by a friend of his who caht lose him his life And so I watched I told you how I followed hi things that glittered like the points of swords,--how he put this box in a case and then in a basket, and slung the basket over his shoulder, and went down into the canon, and then to the cave where I found him I called him--he heard, and held up a miner's lamp and saw me!--then--then, oh, dear God!--then he cursedhim,--he raised his arm to strike me, and in his furious haste to reachfell froreat crash like thunder--and there was a sudden glare of fire!--oh, the awfulness of that sound and that flaround shook and broke under me--and I remember no more--no more till I found myself here!--here with you!"