Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/341

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"ANNIE LAURIE"

trying to return to that old way, there was something else in her tone which had never been there before, and which was as strange to her as to the man who heard it,—something which she could not have constrained if she had tried. So that when she tried to remove her fingers from his hot grasp, he only crushed them closer and drew her nearer to him till she lay against his arm, suddenly so strong, and she ceased to try to draw back and was still.

He bent down to her, and for the first fraction of an instant his lips touched hers. But then the people about the deck commenced to rise and pass by them. The girl drew away a little, but still lay very close.

"Oh, I can't tell you," she shivered delightfully, "how much more fun it was at first and how—how much finer it came to be afterwards—to believe in you against every one, everything, when I was so—so sure I knew you! And I can't begin to show you," she was whispering on, when:

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