Читать книгу Edith Percival. A Novel онлайн

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A young girl, transcendently lovely, was kneeling in the middle of the floor. Her snowy robes fell in spotless folds around her exquisite form; the long silken tresses fell like a shower of rippling sunbeams over her pearly shoulders. The small white hands were clasped over the stainless bosom, that rose and fell with her soft breathing. Every trace of color had faded from that fair face, leaving cheek and brow as white as monumental marble. The large blue eyes, calm and cloudless as mountain lakes, looked from beneath the golden lashes as serene as the heaven to which she seemed about to ascend. On that sweet young face was a look of such rapt, such sublime, such angelic devotion, that Fred for a moment stood, not daring to disturb her.

A sudden crash on deck roused him from the spell into which he was falling. Stepping before her, he said, hurriedly:

"Madam, everything is in flames around you! Come with me, or you will be lost."

At the sound of his voice she sprang to her feet; and with a wild cry of "Saved! saved!" she threw up both snowy arms, and would have fallen fainting to the floor, had he not caught her in his embrace.