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Bates, Arlo, 1850-1918

"The Puritans"


"You are a fiend!" he cried, facing the woman who smiled beside him.
"You are a thief, a shameless, deliberate thief!"
She stood the image of mirthful, innocent girlhood, her smooth forehead
unclouded, her eyes gleaming as if with the merriment of a child.
"It is a pretty fire, isn't it, Maurice?"
Then her whole expression changed. Into her dark, dewy eyes came a look
of rage, visible murder in a glance.
"You called me a liar, there in Boston," she said hissingly. "I am not
surprised to have you add thief now. I have only done what I chose with
my own property; but I would have been cut into little bits before you
should have had that will through me!"
He could not trust himself to reply. He felt that if he spoke he might
break out into curses, and he was conscious of an unmanly longing to
strike her, to mar that beautiful, false face, childlike and pure in
every line,--for the expression of rage had melted as quickly as it had
come,--to feel the joy of seeing her limbs slacken and her red lips
grow white. He clinched his hands and turned resolutely away.
"I'm sure I don't know that there was anything there that you had any
interest in," she pursued lightly.


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