THE MYSTERY
"Will not marry Strang! Isn't that plain?"
"You have guessed nothing—no cause for the prophet's power over your sister?" asked Nathaniel.
"Absolutely nothing. And yet that influence is such that at times the thought of it freezes the blood in my veins. It is so great that Strang did not hesitate to throw me into jail on the pretext that I had threatened his life. Marion implored him to spare me the disgrace of a public whipping and he replied by reading to her the commandments of the kingdom. That was last night—when you saw her through the window. Strang is madly infatuated with her beauty and yet he dares to go to any length without fear of losing her. She has become his slave. She is as completely in his power as though bound in iron chains. And the most terrible thing about it all is that she has constantly urged me to leave the island—to go, and never return. Great God, what does it all mean? I love her more than anything else on
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