Читать книгу A Son of Ishmael. A Novel онлайн

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While she was speaking, Nancy turned and, followed by Rowton, entered the great hall of the almost empty mansion.

“Why, it is as dark as pitch,” exclaimed the young man, “what a state of things; have you no candles, no lamps, nothing to show a gleam of light on an awful night of this sort?”

“I’ll fetch a candle,” she answered. She ran across the hall, opened the door of a sitting-room some little distance away, and returned in a moment, holding a lighted candle high above her head.

“The fire is out in the dining-room,” she said with another shiver, “but we had better go there; I can talk to you better there, and I have something to say.”

“You don’t utter a word until you have a good fire to say it by,” replied Rowton. “This sort of thing is intolerable. You are going to be my wife, you know, Nance, so you have to obey me, whether your father wishes it or not. Here, give me the candle; why, your poor little hand shakes, you would drop it in another moment.”

He took the light out of the girl’s trembling hands, and holding it in such a manner that he could see her face, gazed long and earnestly into it. It was a face of great spirit and beauty. The features were straight and delicate in outline, the brows perfectly black and delicately marked, the eyes large and of a lovely shade of grey, the golden hair looked like a tangled web of many lights. But now the girl’s complexion was pinched and blue with cold, and the lovely eyes had red rims round them.