“So, because she has been slandered, the poor girl”—
“I am willing to think she is innocent; but the Countess Ville-Handry must not be a slandered woman.”
She raised herself to her full height, and added in a higher voice,—
“You are master here, father; you can do as you choose. But I—I owe it to myself and to the sacred memory of my mother, to protest by all the means in my power; and I shall protest.”
The count stammered and stared. The blood rose to his head. He cried out,—
“At last I know you, Henrietta, and I understand you. I was not mistaken. It was you who sent M. Daniel Champcey to Miss Brandon, to insult her at her own house.”
“Sir!” interrupted M. Daniel in a threatening tone.
But the count could not be restrained; and, with his eyes almost starting from their sockets, he continued,—
“Yes, I read your innermost heart, Henrietta. You are afraid of losing a part of your inheritance.”
Stung by this insult, Henrietta had stepped up close to her father,—