Was it not enough that the young man had stepped into his place on the death of his mother—that when he fancied himself in the untrammelled possession of her fortune, a will, undreamed of during her life, should have been found, transmitting every dollar of her property into the uncontrolled possession of a son—was not this disappointment enough? Must his self-love and pride be swept into the same vortex? Had both wives proved their treason against him where he was most sensitive?
The old man would not remember that James Harrington had not only allowed him to remain the ostensible possessor of this large fortune, undoubtedly his own just inheritance, but that more than two thirds of the annual income had for nearly twenty years been surrendered to his unquestioned disposal. He forgot that Mabel's fortune had melted away at the gaming-table without inquiry or protest on her part, and that, in fact, his own luxurious life was fostered only by their magnanimous bounty. All these things were ignored in his rage at the secrets revealed in that unhappy journal, and he really believed himself the most wronged and outraged of human beings—wronged because the woman whom he had first married for her wealth alone, had divined the truth, and left all that she possessed to her son, which seemed a new offense to him then—and outraged that any woman honored by his preference, should ever have given another place in her thoughts. His grounds for anger went no deeper than this at the moment, for even his stony heart would not give birth to a thought of wrong against Mabel, beyond the erring love so feelingly regretted in every line of that book; but there was a tempter at hand, ready to infuse venom into even his selfish nature.
General Harrington sat with the book open before him. One hand, on which was a costly seal-ring, had, in unconscious warmth, grasped a dozen of the leaves, and half-torn them from the cover, while his eye read on, fascinated, and yet repulsed by the secret thoughts thus torn with unmanly violence from poor Mabel's life. All the craft and coolness of his nature had disappeared for the moment. His whole being was fired with disgust and bitter rage. Still, in his soul, he felt that these two persons had in reality suffered a deadly wrong from himself; that, after encouraging the attachment which he had hoped might spring up between them before his wife's death had swept her great wealth out of his hands, he had ruthlessly, and without questioning the state of these two souls, severed them for the accomplishment of his own interests. It had not once occurred to him that any lasting attachment for another could exist, while he condescended to solicit a woman's preference; and that which had for a time made itself manifest between the two young people, only gave a fresher zest to his conquest. To win a woman from one so much younger than himself, was even then, a triumph almost as agreeable as the possession of Mabel's fortune.
But now, when he was beginning to feel the approach of age, and to wither under the preference given to younger men—a preference rendered each day more decided in a country where statesmen are jostled aside by beardless boys, and the senseless giggle of pert school girls might drive Sappho into a second watery grave, sickened with disgust. His personal vanity became almost a monomania, and he sat there, clutching Mabel's book, pale as death, and with flecks of foam gathering upon his lips, longing to appease his mortified vanity by tearing fiercely at something, as a baffled hound digs his claws into the earth when his prey is beyond reach.
As he sat there shaking with silent rage, a door, not used for years, opened in his bed-chamber, and a woman came through, leaving the dark and dusty room which had for a short time been occupied by the first Mrs. Harrington, before her fatal voyage to Europe, in total darkness again. She stood for a moment, concealed by the crimson curtains, and keenly watched the old man, as he sat trembling before her in the first rage of his humiliation. Then, having satisfied herself that her hour was propitious, she stole softly into the library, and dropping one arm softly over General Harrington's shoulder, stooped down and kissed his forehead. The old man started, looked up, and a faint laugh, almost childish in the sudden reaction from which it sprung, broke from his lips.
"Zillah, my beautiful, my true-hearted, is it you?"
The woman dropped on one knee, trembling from head to foot. Some endearing epithet, uttered in French, which converted the laugh on his lips into a smile, broke as it were, unconsciously from her; and he felt the arm upon his shoulder shiver like the wing of a bird just as it settles after flight.
He answered her in French, and his eyes, full of gratitude for the balm her emotion brought to his vanity, sought hers.
"Zillah, you loved me. I am at least sure of that!"
"Loved!" said the woman, lifting her black eyes, to his face. "Loved my master. You speak as if such feelings were not eternal; to say that your poor slave loved once, is nothing; turn over every leaf of her heart, and you will find the same record upon them all. Thank Heaven, I am not entirely white! There is enough of tropical fire in my blood, to save me from burying my soul under the ashes of a dead love."