Читать книгу The 13th District. A Story of a Candidate онлайн

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“Don’t, don’t! Jerome, please,” she held her hand to his lips to hush him, “don’t talk of dying! I’m frightened to-night.” She shuddered once again into his arms.

“Frightened?” he scoffed. “What at?”

“Oh, I don’t know; it’s foolish. I guess it’s just because I’m so happy—and I’m afraid of too much happiness.”

He could only fold her closely in his arms again. He, too, was filled with a fear he dare not name.

It was late when Garwood walked homeward under the maples that poured their thick shadows along the sidewalks of Sangamon Avenue. The carriages which in the early evening had squeaked leisurely by in the sprinkled street had taken their occupants home. The houses of Grand Prairie’s aristocrats were closed for the night and loomed now dark and still. Here and there, on a dusky lawn, he could see some counterfeit fountain, improvised of the garden hose, left to run all night, tossing its sparkling drops into the mellow light of the moon. The only sounds beyond the tinkle of these fountains were the sounds of a wide summer night, the crickets, the katydids, far away the booming of bullfrogs, farther away still the baying of some lonesome dog. It was all peace without, the peace of brooding night; but within, fear lay cold and heavy on his heart; not alone the fear which, with its remorse and regret, he had felt keen as knives at his heart an hour before when the woman he loved lay passive in his arms, but a new fear, though born in the same brood. Under its stress, his imagination tortured him with scenes in the forthcoming campaign, black headlines in opposition newspapers, a voice bawling a question at him from the crowd he was addressing, until the cumulative force of their disclosures should drive him from the stump.