Again the prima-donna appeared on the stage, and again Beulah forgot everything but the witching strains. In the midst of one of the songs she felt her guardian start violently; and the hand which rested on his knee was clinched spasmodically. She looked at him; the wonted pale face was flushed to the edge of his hair; the blue veins stood out hard and corded on his brow; and the eyes, like burning stars, were fixed on some object not very remote, while he gnawed his lip, as if unconscious of what he did. Following the direction of his gaze, she saw that it was fastened on a gentleman who sat at some little distance from them. The position he occupied rendered his countenance visible, and a glance sufficed to show her that the features were handsome, the expression sinister, malignant, and cunning. His entire appearance was foreign, and conveyed the idea of reckless dissipation. Evidently he came there, not for the music, but to scan the crowd, and his fierce eyes roamed over the audience with a daring impudence which disgusted her. Suddenly they rested on her own face, wandered to Dr. Hartwell's, and, lingering there a full moment with a look of defiant hatred, returned to her, causing her to shudder at the intensity and freedom of his gaze. She drew herself up proudly, and, with an air of haughty contempt, fixed her attention on the stage. But the spell of enchantment was broken; she could hear the deep, irregular breathing of her guardian, and knew, from the way in which he stared down on the floor, that he could with difficulty remain quietly in his place. She was glad when the concert ended and the mass of heads began to move toward the door. With a species of curiosity that she could not repress, she glanced at the stranger; their eyes met, as before, and his smile of triumphant scorn made her cling closer to her guardian's arm, and take care not to look in that direction again. She felt inexpressibly relieved when, hurried on by the crowd in the rear, they emerged from the heated room into a long, dim passage leading to the street. They were surrounded on all sides by chattering groups, and, while the light was too faint to distinguish faces, these words fell on her ear with painful distinctness: "I suppose that was Dr. Hartwell's protegee he had with him. He is a great curiosity. Think of a man of his age and appearance settling down as if he were sixty years old, and adopting a beggarly orphan! She is not at all pretty. What can have possessed him?"
"No, not pretty, exactly; but there is something odd in her appearance. Her brow is magnificent, and I should judge she was intellectual. She is as colorless as a ghost. No accounting for Hartwell; ten to one he will marry her. I have heard it surmised that he was educating her for a wife—" Here the party who were in advance vanished, and, as he approached the carriage, Dr. Hartwell said coolly:
"Another specimen of democracy."
Beulah felt as if a lava tide surged madly in her veins, and, as the carriage rolled homeward, she covered her face with her hands. Wounded pride, indignation, and contempt struggled violently in her heart. For some moments there was silence; then her guardian drew her hands from her face, held them firmly in his, and, leaning forward, said gravely:
"Beulah, malice and envy love lofty marks. Learn, as I have done, to look down with scorn from the summit of indifference upon the feeble darts aimed from the pits beneath you. My child, don't suffer the senseless gossip of the shallow crowd to wound you."
She endeavored to withdraw her hands, but his unyielding grasp prevented her.
"Beulah, you must conquer your morbid sensitiveness, if you would have your life other than a dreary burden."
"Oh, sir! you are not invulnerable to these wounds; how, then, can I, an orphan girl, receive them with indifference?" She spoke passionately, and drooped her burning face till it touched his arm.
"Ah, you observed my agitation to-night. But for a vow made to my dying mother, that villian's blood had long since removed all grounds of emotion. Six years ago he fled from me, and his unexpected reappearance to-night excited me more than I had fancied it was possible for anything to do." His voice was as low, calm, and musical as though he were reading aloud to her some poetic tale of injuries; and, in the same even, quiet tone, he added:
"It is well. All have a Nemesis."