As if she had suddenly seen an abyss opening beneath her feet, Henrietta threw herself back, pale, trembling, her eyes starting from their sockets.
“You—-love—Daniel!” she stammered,—“you love him!”
And, agitated by a nervous tremor, she said, laughing painfully,—
“But he—he? Can you hope that he will ever love you?”
“Yes, any day I may wish for it. And I shall wish it the day when he returns.”
Was she speaking seriously? or was the whole scene only a bit of cruel sport? That is what Henrietta was asking herself, as far as she was able to control her thoughts; for she felt her head growing dizzy, and her thoughts rushed wildly through her mind.
“You love Daniel!” she repeated once more, “and yet you were married the very week after his departure!”
“Alas, yes!”
“And what was my father to you? A magnificent prey, which you did not like to let escape,—an easy dupe. After all, you acknowledge it yourself, it was his fortune you wanted. It was for his money’s sake that you married him,—you, the young, marvellously-beautiful woman,—the old man.”
A smile rose upon the lips of the countess, in which she appeared herself in all the deep treachery of her secret calculations. She broke in, laughing ironically—