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Updated: May 11, 2025
Her old skill and training were of service now. She knew just what she absolutely needed, and bought no more. Holcroft laid in a good stock of groceries and some juicy beef and then returned. When Mr. Jasper gave him his bill, he went to Alida, who was resting, and said in a low voice, "This won't do at all. You can't have bought half enough."
How were you married to this man Holcroft?" Alida grew dizzy; everything whirled and grew black before her eyes as she sank into a chair. He came to her and took her hand, but his touch was a most effectual restorative. She threw his hand away and said hoarsely, "Do you do you mean that you have any claim on me?" "Who has a better claim?" he asked cunningly.
Alida Ascott. Trouble had begun the previous autumn with a lively exchange of notes between them concerning the shooting of woodcock on Mrs. Ascott's side of the boundary. Then Portlaw stupidly built a dam and diverted the waters of Painted Creek.
At the next instant, Seadrift moved into the space visible through the half-drawn drapery, and took her hand. Alida made no effort to withdraw the member; but, on the contrary, she looked up into his face with still less equivocal interest, and appeared to listen to his voice with an absorbed attention.
"Oh, oh!" she moaned, "It's a terrible wound; it might have killed you, and they WILL kill you yet." He took her hands and held them firmly. "Alida," he said, gravely yet kindly, "be still and listen to me." For a moment or two longer her bosom heaved with convulsive sobs, and then she grew quiet. "Don't you know you can't go away?" he asked, still retaining her hands and looking in her face.
"But," he threw back over his shoulder, "you'd better acquire the rudiments of a figure before you go a-courting Alida Ascott." And left Portlaw sitting petrified in his wadded chair. Malcourt strolled on, a humorously malicious smile hovering near his eyes, but his face grew serious as he glanced up at Hamil's window.
He rose from the table, lighted his pipe, and went out to the doorstep. Alida looked at him wistfully. "He stood there with me once and faced a mob of men," she thought. "Then he put his arm around me. I would face almost any danger for even such a caress again."
When Alida lifted her eyes, it was in kindness, and with that frank ingenuousness with which an unperverted female greets the countenance of those who have her confidence. She smiled, though still in sadness rather than in pleasure; and she spoke, but the distance prevented her words from being audible.
Alida could not object to this liberality, though she was not without a secret opinion that the gifts were no more than delicate and well-concealed offerings to herself. The effect of this suspicion was two-fold; it caused the maiden to become more reserved in the expression of her tastes, though it in no degree lessened her confidence in, and admiration of, the wayward and remarkable trader.
He was not sorry, therefore, to have an excuse to delay his inquiries, that appeared so much in character as that of reading the communications of his business correspondents. Swallowing the contents of the tiny cup he held, at a gulp, the eager merchant seized the packet that Alida now offered; and, muttering a few words of apology to Ludlow, he left the pavilion.
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