"
"Long, long ago," echoed Nicol Brinn. "To me it has seemed a
century; to-night it seems a day."
He watched her with a deep and tireless content. Presently her
eyes fell. "Sit here beside me," she said. "I have not long to be
here. Put your arms round me. I have something to tell you."
He seated himself beside her on the settee, and held her close.
"My Naida!" he breathed softly.
"Ah, no, no!" she entreated. "Do you want to break my heart?"
He suddenly released her, clenched his big hands, and stared down
at the carpet. "You have broken mine."
Impulsively Naida threw her arms around his neck, coiling herself
up lithely and characteristically beside him.
"My big sweetheart," she whispered, crooningly. "Don't say
it--don't say it."
"I have said it. It is true."
Turning, fiercely he seized her. "I won't let you go!" he cried,
and there was a strange light in his eyes. "Before I was
helpless, now I am not. This time you have come to me, and you
shall stay."
She shrank away from him terrified, wild-eyed. "Oh, you forget,
you forget!"
"For seven years I have tried to forget. I have been mad, but
to-night I am sane."
"I trusted you, I trusted you!" she moaned.
Nicol Brinn clenched his teeth grimly for a moment, and then,
holding her averted face very close to his own, he began to speak
in a low, monotonous voice. "For seven years," he said, "I have
tried to die, because without you I did not care to live.
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