“And my father has then entertained the project of an attempt to break it.”
“This is not fair,” cried she, eagerly; “you lead me on from one admission to another, till I find myself revealing confidences to one who at any moment may avow himself my enemy.”
I raised my eyes to her face, and she met my glance with a look cold, stern, and impassive, as though she would say, “Choose your path now, and accept me as friend or foe.” All the winning softness of her manner, all those engaging coquetries of look and gesture, of which none was more mistress, were gone, and another and a very different nature had replaced them.
This, then, was one of those women all tenderness and softness and fascination, but who behind this mask have the fierce nature of the tigress. Could she be the same I had seen so submissive under all the insolence of her brutal husband, bearing his scoffs and his sarcasms without a word of reply? Was it that these cruelties had at last evoked this stern spirit, and that another temperament had been generated out of a nature broken down and demoralised by ill treatment?
“Shall I tell you what I think you ought to do?” asked she, calmly. I nodded assent. “Sit down there, then,” continued she, “and write these few lines to your father, and let him have them before he returns here.”
“First of all, I cannot write just now; I have had a slight accident to my right arm.”
“I know,” said she, smiling dubiously. “You hurt it in the riding-school; but it's a mere nothing, is it not?”
I made a gesture of assent, not altogether pleased the while at the little sympathy she vouchsafed me, and the insignificance she ascribed to my wound.
“Shall I write for you, then? you can sign it afterwards.''
“Let me first know what you would have me say.”