“Especially by me and my child, whom he consigned to a life of misery, dishonor and reproach!” said the woman, in withering scorn. “Enough! by his advice and his assistance, you succeeded in annulling your juvenile marriage and repudiating your wife and child! Once more we are turned from your door. I had a long illness, during which, I think, my soul must have left my body, and the spirit of a fiend entered it. For, a loving, suffering, forgiving woman, I fell into that fever, but I arose from it the avenger of my own sex, the destroyer of yours!”
He knew that her words were the ravings of insanity, and yet they seemed to curdle his blood.
She continued:
“Were there not fallen angels enough in this pandemonium of a world that you might have spared the poor old curate’s little daughter? What excuse had you for her destruction? Love? Bah! Love does not destroy its object! Passion? Passion is of the soul, and your soul was smothered in selfishness even in your infancy! You feel a single glow of human love or passion, who from boyhood have been a monster of egotism! But I did not come here to deal in invective—I came to wind up accounts with you for ever. Enough that I arose from that bed of illness a spirit prepared for any work of evil! Every door was closed against me—every road barred except that which leads down to death and perdition! I do not intend to amuse you, baron, with the life of a lost spirit. I was not far from you on that grand day when you led the Lady Elfrida Gaunt to the altar; and my curse that arose to Heaven interrupted the marriage benediction. I was near you also on that other proud day, when bonfires blazed and bells were rung, and oxen roasted in honor of the christening of your heir, and my curse neutralized the blessing of the babe. Then I pressed my own discarded child to my heart, and recorded a vow of vengeance upon two men and all their race, even though it should take me a long lifetime to work it out. How long I pursued you secretly, how often I failed, need not here be told. One day I found myself in Paris, among congenial spirits, where a career opened before me; where evil is organized into a perfect working system, having its constitution and by-laws—its forms of government and schools of training—its lovely girls and handsome boys, educated into accomplished women and men to become the sirens and satyrs of society. Of this secret band I became a member. Men called me beautiful and gifted. I went upon the stage, not from necessity, but to facilitate my intercourse with a certain set of wealthy dupes, for I still continued a bond member of the secret society. Years passed and I became a celebrity. At last I met the aged and decrepit General de la Compte. He offered me marriage and I accepted him. He had a daughter but a few months younger than my own. He died in the second year of our marriage, leaving me to bring up the two girls. When these young women had reached a marriageable age, your son, grown to manhood, appeared in Paris—”
Here the woman paused, and looked wistfully into the blanched face of the old man; then, with a dreadful smile, she said:
“But you know the story—”
“Woman of Belial, yes!”
“But you do not know whom you have doomed to death to-day.”
“Ha! There is something more than meets the ear in this reiterated question! Whom do you mean?”
“Your own daughter! She who, but for your black treachery, would now be ruling in your halls, heiress of Elverton, instead of lying in a prison-cell, a convicted felon!”