His companion laughed.
“I mean it,” he added—“mean what I say, but I must commit one crime more. I will not rob this man, I will not steal his money, I will rob him of a treasure he holds dearer than his gold—I will take his wife. Thus my heart shall be consoled and my hate revenged.”
Miss Stanbridge looked at the speaker in a state of bewilderment.
“You love her then?” said she, as her eyes scintillated sparks of fire.
The young man nodded significantly. “I love her,” he repeated, “and will go abroad and take her with me.”
“Excellent device!”
“She shall never leave me.”
“She will always hate you.”
“And I shall always love her. All that the mind of man can conceive, all that the powers of man can execute, I will employ to gain her love. But she shall be mine, I swear it.”
Laura Stanbridge writhed as she listened to these words, after which she became very calm.