"How beautiful you are still," muttered the old man, passing his palm over the black waves of her hair, with a light caress. "Your presence kindles the very atmosphere. This is to be worshipped worthily. You loved me, and I sold you for her sake. I bartered you off for so much money to another; it was a cruel act, Zillah; but your love surmounted even that, while hers"——
"She never loved you; never—never!" cried the woman, passionately. "I, I alone of all the women on earth, really loved you. As for her"——
"Hush, Zillah, hush! I know all. I have read that book. I know all her treachery; and he, ever a serpent in my path, ever a restraint upon my actions, he has in this point also assailed me."
"But there is revenge!" said the woman, with a fierce gleam of the eyes; "revenge on him and her!"
"No!" answered the General, gloomily. "To anger him, would be to make myself a beggar. I must bear this in silence."
"Not if he loves her yet."
"But, does he? What man ever remained faithful to a first love twenty years?"
A faint moan broke from the woman's lips, and dropping her face between her hands, she cowered at his feet, as if he had stricken her down with a blow, instead of those cruel words that no physical pain can equal, when they fall upon a woman's heart.
"What is the matter, Zillah? Why do you moan and droop in this fashion?" said the General, quite unconscious of the pang he had given.
The woman looked up; her eyes were heavy with pain, and a scarcely perceptible quiver stirred her mouth.