“It has not!” she exclaimed, with sudden passion; “Mahaska never forgets! You came between me and all that makes life endurable—you trailed the venom of your smile over every hope of my heart—you usurped my place in the house of my father—you made me an outcast, an alien, and then dared to insult me by offering your pity to her you called the ‘poor half-breed!’”
“Had you been my own sister, I could not have loved you more fondly,” returned Adèle. “Oh, Katharine, give up those cruel thoughts—even now, I will forget the past and be your friend—”
Mahaska interrupted her with a laugh.
“Queen Mahaska can not express her gratitude for the honor Madame De Laguy offers her,” she said.
“Oh, Katharine, do not mock me with such cruel words There must be some tenderness left in your heart! I implore you, by the pious teaching we learned together in the convent for the love of the Virgin, whom they taught us to venerate, to show mercy.”
“The superstitions of the pale-face found no resting-place in Mahaska’s mind,” she replied. “I am an Indian, the faith of the red-men is mine. I once was Katharine the half-breed but now am Mahaska, queen of the Senecas!”
“By your father’s memory—”
“He broke my mother’s heart that yours might fill her home; forced me out of his heart to give you a place there; do not rouse that recollection.”
Adèle wrung her hands in anguish.
“You have a husband,” she cried, “perhaps a child; oh by the love you bear that little one, have mercy on my poor babe!”