"No, Ellen, I am not angry at any thing."
"Then why are you so stern with me?"
"Because I am myself again."
The woman was really frightened; the impolicy of her late conduct forced itself upon her; for a moment she sat biting her lips in silence.
"You had better go to your room," he said, quietly; "the marble floor is cold."
"Not half as cold as your heart," she answered, with a burst of tears. "Ah, Nelson, how can you treat me so cruelly? Me, who—who——"
"Who love me so dearly," he said, with one of the most cutting sneers that ever disfigured a man's countenance.
These were the very words she had been trying to utter, but they lodged in her throat. He had anticipated the falsehood with a sneer. She arose haughtily. Tears rolled down her flushed cheeks. She was really a beautiful woman; but her loveliness had no effect on him then. In her reckless vanity she had wounded him almost beyond repair, and his bosom serpent crested itself fiercely.
"I did not expect this," she said, in pale anger. "You shall never have a chance to insult me again."
"I did not seek it now. It is not my wish that you should ever come here."