“You must be badly off, indeed, to come to a woman for advice,” she rejoined. “When you want to rob a house, do you ask me how to pick the locks? And now that a lusty farmer has insulted you and given you a good drubbing, you ask me what to do. Throw off your fine clothes and your finnicking airs. Alf Purvis, I am only a weak woman, but I need no instruction when I wish to be avenged. Ah! you do not know how sweet it is to be revenged.”
She became frightfully pale as she made this last observation, and cast upon him a look as venomous as a viper. He remained silent for some minutes. She watched him eagerly.
“Your friends have been more successful than you have been,” said Laura Stanbridge; “they managed to get into Nettlethorpe’s house, and carried off all the valuables in a regular business-like way. They were clever, but you are not.”
“I am much obliged for the compliment,” returned her companion; “much obliged. This is a fitting time to indulge in taunts and sneers. You compare me to the Smoucher and the Cracksman—a low-bred pair of rascals as ever darkened the doors of an honest man’s house. I tell you what it is, my lady, you are not the same woman to me that you were, not by a long way.”
“That is most surprising—isn’t it?”
“It’s a fact that I know full well.”
“Are you the same? As long as you were an outcast, a poor wretch, wandering about the streets without a home or a friend, you were civil and tractable enough; but now——”
“Well, go on, Lorry, go on, finish the sentence.”
“Now you are vain, haughty, and unmindful of those who have befriended you.”
“It is false. I never was unmindful of past favours, but I intend to alter my course of life—to reform, and, if possible, to live honestly.”