"I am totally at a loss to know how your remarks can apply to me, in any way."
"Then I will speak plainly. Your actions for the last few months have been such as to bid me hope for a return of my love, and allured by that hope, founded on those actions, I have placed my affections so strongly, that I fear it will be death to tear them away. As you have caused me to love, is it demanding more than justice that I should ask you to at least try to love me in return?"
"Mr. Durant, you know that your accusations are untrue. Did you not just tell me that you loved before you ever spoke to me on the subject? and have you not repeatedly, aye, a hundred times, told me I was cold toward you, ever evincing a want of cordiality? How, then, can you have the face to ask a return of love on this score? Since you have been at such pains to make out so contradictory a case, I will say that you but lessen yourself in my esteem by the attempt!"
"I see, alas, you are a heartless coquette!"
"Because I will not place the half of my father's wealth in your possession. I have read your motive from the beginning, sir, and have only refrained from telling you my mind, because I make it a rule to have the good will of a dog, in preference to his ill will, when I can. But as your conduct to-day has removed the last thin screen from your real character, and revealed your naked depravity of heart, I care not even for your friendship. You know, you feel, that you are a degraded wretch, and that you are unworthy of the society of the virtuous."
"Madam, those words just spoken have sealed your fate! Dog as I am, I have the power to work your ruin, and I will do it! I go from your presence a bitter and unrelenting foe! The love you have rejected has turned into bitterness, and the dregs of that bitterness you shall drink till your soul sickens unto death! I will never lose sight of you! Go where you may, I will follow you! Hide in what corner of the world you may, I will find you! When you meet me, remember I am an implacable enemy, seeking revenge!"
"Go, vile miscreant, from my presence! Think not to intimidate me. Better an 'open enemy than a secret foe.' I am glad you have unmasked yourself so fully. Now I know that I have escaped the worst fate on earth."
"Not the worst! To be the wife of even a villain is better than to be his victim!"
"Leave my presence, sir, or I will call a slave to put you out! Infamous wretch! The curse of God be upon you!"
He went, quailing under the flash of her indignant eye, which made his guilty soul cower in abasement.