Page:Nostromo (1904).djvu/276

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Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

go on from phrase to phrase, like a sort of awful and solemn madness.

"’After all, the democratic aspirations have, per- haps, their legitimacy. The ways of human progress are inscrutable, and if the fate of the country is in the hand of Montero, we ought

"I crashed the door to on that; it was enough; it was too much. There was never a beautiful face ex- pressing more horror and despair than the face of An- tonia. I couldn't bear it; I seized her wrists.

'" Have they killed my father in there?' she asked. "Her eyes blazed with indignation, but as I looked on, fascinated, the light in them went out. '"It is a surrender,' I said. And I remember I was shaking her wrists I held apart in my hand. ' But it's more than a talk. Your father told me to go on in God's name.'

"My dear girl, there is that in Antonia which would make me believe in the feasibility of anything. One look at her face is enough to set my brain on fire. And yet I love her as any other man would with the heart, and with that alone. She is more to me than his church to Father Corbelan (the Grand Vicar disappeared last night from the town; perhaps gone to join the band of Hernandez). She is more to me than his precious mine to that sentimental Englishman. I won't speak of his wife. S.he may have been sentimental once. The San Tome' mine stands now between those two people. 'Your father himself, Antonia,' I repeated; 'your father, do you understand? has told me to go on.'

"She averted her face, and in a pained voice:

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