But when he took her hand in greeting that morning, and said with
a smile that seemed to flash out from the depths of his soul,
"I won't hurt you any more if I can help it," all scruples, all
hesitancy vanished for a time, like frostwork in the sun. His
magnetism was irresistible, and she felt that it would require
all her tact and resolution to keep him by some careless, random
word or act, from brushing aside the veil behind which shrank her
trembling, and as yet, unsought love.
But Van Berg was even a rarer study than the maiden, and his manner
towards both Ida and her father might well lead one to think that
he was inclined to become the chief conspirator in the design
against himself. He had scarcely been conscious of time or place
since parting the previous day with the friend he was so bent
on securing, and when at last he slept in the small hours of the
morning he dreamt that he had been caught by a mighty tidal wave
that was bearing him swiftly towards heaven on its silver crest.
When he awoke, the wave, so far from being a bubble, seemed a
grand spiritual reality, and he felt as if he had already reached
a seventh heaven of vague, undefined exhilaration.
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