Brant's mind was a chaos of conflicting emotions, but a single abiding

conviction never once left him--he retained implicit faith in her, and

he purposed to fight this matter out with Hampton. Even in that

crucial hour, had any one ventured to suggest that he was in love with

Naida, he would merely have laughed, serenely confident that nothing

more than gentlemanly interest swayed his conduct. It was true, he

greatly admired the girl, recalled to memory her every movement, her

slightest glance, her most insignificant word, while her marvellous

eyes constantly haunted him, yet the dawn of love was not even faintly

acknowledged.

Nevertheless, he manifested an unreasonable dislike for Hampton. He

had never before felt thus toward this person; indeed, he had possessed

a strong man's natural admiration for the other's physical power and

cool, determined courage. He now sincerely feared Hampton's power over

the innocent mind of the girl, imagining his influence to be much

stronger than it really was, and he sought after some suitable means

for overcoming it. He had no faith in this man's professed reform, no

abiding confidence in his word of honor; and it seemed to him then that

the entire future of the young woman's life rested upon his deliverance

of her from the toils of the gambler. He alone, among those who might

be considered as her true friends, knew the secret of her infatuation,

and upon him alone, therefore, rested the burden of her release. It

was his heart that drove him into such a decision, although he

conceived it then to be the reasoning of the brain.

And so she was Naida Gillis, poor old Gillis's little girl! He stopped

suddenly in the road, striving to realize the thought. He had never

once dreamed of such a consummation, and it staggered him. His thought

drifted back to that pale-faced, red-haired, poorly dressed slip of a

girl whom he had occasionally viewed with disapproval about the

post-trader's store at Bethune, and it seemed simply an impossibility.

He recalled the unconscious, dust-covered, nameless waif he had once

held on his lap beside the Bear Water. What was there in common

between that outcast, and this well-groomed, frankly spoken young

woman? Yet, whoever she was or had been, the remembrance of her could

not be conjured out of his brain. He might look back with repugnance

upon those others, those misty phantoms of the past, but the vision of

his mind, his ever-changeable divinity of the vine shadows, would not

become obscured, nor grow less fascinating. Let her be whom she might,

no other could ever win that place she occupied in his heart. His mind

dwelt upon her flushed cheeks, her earnest face, her wealth of glossy

hair, her dark eyes filled with mingled roguery and thoughtfulness,--in

utter unconsciousness that he was already her humble slave. Suddenly

there occurred to him a recollection of Silent Murphy, and his strange,

unguarded remark. What could the fellow have meant? Was there,

indeed, some secret in the life history of this young girl?--some story

of shame, perhaps? If so, did Hampton know about it?




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024