Love, fear, remorse,
apprehension, all were blended together in the look he fixed upon
her. "You won't leave me," he said. "Any thing but that. Tell me
my error, and how I can atone."
Edith was about to speak, when, on the stairs without,--the stairs
leading from the den--there was the patter of little feet, and a
gentle, timid knock was heard upon the door.
"It's locked--go back;" and Arthur's voice had in it a tone of
command.
"Mr. St. Claire," and Edith sprang from her chair, "I can unlock
that door, and I will."
Like a block of marble Arthur stood while Edith opened the oak-
paneled door. Another moment and Nina stood before her, as she
stands now first before our readers.
Edith knew her in a moment from the resemblance to the
daguerreotype seen more than eight years before, and as she now
scanned her features it seemed to her they had scarcely changed at
all. Arthur had said of her then that she was not quite sixteen,
consequently she was now nearly twenty-five, but she did not look
as old as Edith, so slight was her form, so delicate her limbs,
and so childlike and simple the expression of her face.
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