"No, you must not read it. Too dreadful!"
But Valencia read it; while Lucia covered her face in her hands, and uttered a long, low, shuddering moan of bitter agony.
Valencia read, with flashing eyes and bursting brow. It was a hideous letter. The words of a man trying to supply the place of strength by virulence. A hideous letter, unfit to be written here.
"Valencia! Valencia! It is false—a mistake—he is dreaming. You know it is false! You will not leave me too!"
Valencia dashed it on the ground, clasped her sister in her arms, and covered her head with kisses.
"My Lucia! My own sweet good sister! Base, cowardly," sobbed she, in her rage; while Lucia's agony began to find a vent in words, and she moaned on—
"What have I done? All that flower, that horrid flower: but who would have dreamed—and Major Campbell, too, of all men upon earth! Valencia, it is some horrid delusion of the devil. Why, he was there all the while—and you too. Could he think that I should before his very face? What must he fancy me? Oh, it is a delusion of the devil, and nothing else!"
"He is a wretch! I will take the letter to my brother; he shall right you!"
"Ah no! no! never! Let me tear it to atoms—hide it! It is all a mistake! He did not mean it! He will recollect himself to-morrow and come back."
"Let him come back if he dare!" cried Valencia, in a tone which said, "I could kill him with my own hands!"