“No! no!” cried Emily, clasping her hands together. “When he first came into my way—that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me being carried to my grave!—I had been brought up as
virtuous as you or any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home and know him, you know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl might be. I don’t defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will know when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved him!”
Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that I had almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which had no aim, fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with rage and scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never could see such another.
“You love him? You?” she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath.
Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply.
“And tell that to me,” she added, “with your shameful lips? Why don’t they whip these creatures! If I could order it to be done, I would have this girl whipped to death.”
And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the rack itself, while that furious look lasted.
She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for gods and men.
“She love!” she said. “That carrion! And he ever cared for her, she’d tell me? Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!”
Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained it up again, and however it might tear her within, she subdued it to herself.