--_New Orleans Watchman_.'"
"Isn't it singular," she remarked, "that a man in his position should make
such a choice?"
"He loved her, no doubt," suggested Clarence; "and she was almost white."
"How could he love her?" asked she, wonderingly. "Love a coloured woman! I
cannot conceive it possible," said she, with a look of disgust; "there is
something strange and unnatural about it."
"No, no," he rejoined, hurriedly, "it was love, Anne,--pure love; it is not
impossible. I--I--" "am coloured," he would have said; but he paused and
looked full in her lovely face. He could not tell her,--the words slunk
back into his coward heart unspoken.
She stared at him in wonder and perplexity, and exclaimed,--"Dear Clarence,
how strangely you act! I am afraid you are not well. Your brow is hot,"
said she, laying her hand on his forehead; "you have been travelling too
much for your strength."
"It is not that," he replied. "I feel a sense of suffocation, as if all the
blood was rushing to my throat. Let me get the air." And he rose and walked
to the window. Anne hastened and brought him a glass of water, of which he
drank a little, and then declared himself better.
After this, he stood for a long time with her clasped in his arms; then
giving her one or two passionate kisses, he strained her closer to him and
abruptly left the house, leaving Little Birdie startled and alarmed by his
strange behaviour.
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