Page:Contending Forces by Pauline Hopkins.djvu/280

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274
CONTENDING FORCES.

CHAPTER XVI.

JOHN LANGLEY CONSULTS MADAM FRANCES.

Macbeth.—Tell me, thou unknown power,—
First Witch.—He knows thy thought:
Hear his speech but say thou nought.
Macbeth.—Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution thanks;
But one word more,—
First Witch.—He will not be commanded: here's another,
More potent than the first.
Macbeth.

Many things troubled John Langley. The fact that Dora and he seemed to have lost the close relationship which had distinguished the first period of their engagement, and that she now studiously avoided him and accepted with alacrity all the attention which her childhood's lover so ardently showered upon her, did not disturb him so much as the utter indifference of Sappho Clark. How to bend her to his will was the thought which absorbed his waking hours and haunted him even in sleep. She should not escape him; on that he was determined.

This morning as he walked down town to his office he turned over various plans in his mind, and finally determined to go that very day and consult Madam Frances, who had been