“If she were to dare to set foot upon this plantation I would loosen my bloodhounds upon her!”
“Fiend—you are the only bloodhound that would hurt her. Turn them loose on her, then—do it! They would crouch at her feet! They would lick her hands—her beautiful hands—that have fed and caressed them all. Or get strange dogs to hunt her with, and even they would grovel before the angel in her eyes. Oh, fool!—you are the only brute on God’s creation that would harm her,” said Alice, in a low, deep tone.
General Garnet continued, as if he had not heard her:
“If she were lying, dying, at my gate I would not suffer one of my negroes to hand her a drink of water, if that drink of water would save her from death!”
“Demon—there is not a man, woman, or child on this plantation that you could hinder, with all your malice and power, from rendering Elsie any service she might require—unless you imprisoned them, or tied them hand and foot!” said Alice, in a dying voice.
Still he continued, without attending to her indignant but faint interruptions. And his face became still more dark and demoniac.
“And now comes the very best part of the argument, which, like a good orator, I have saved for the very last—I wonder how you will like it! I shall take pleasure in watching the play of your pretty features while I tell you, and dissecting and analyzing the emotions of your heart as you hear! And saying within myself—there is so much regret, and there is so much shame, and there is so much jealousy, and there is so much rage. Listen, then—you have disappointed me in my first plan for uniting two great estates. Before I have done I will make you regret that. The estates shall be united yet. You have taught your daughter to disobey me. Very well; you have bereft her of her birthright for a caress, to your shame be it remembered—and I have discarded and disowned her. But, listen: I have another daughter—the child of my love—ha!—are you pale with jealousy? Listen, farther yet: all the broad lands of Mount Calm that came by you, and should descend to your child, and enrich her, will I bestow upon the child of my love; and her hand will I bestow upon Lionel Hardcastle, who will be glad to accept it, no doubt. Ha! Now die of rage!” he exclaimed, with a ferocious laugh.
But neither regret, shame, nor jealousy, nor rage, disfigured that peaceful face, or agitated that composed figure. General Garnet, who glanced at her first in triumph, now gazed in awe. Her eyes were closed, her hands had fallen. Her whole figure expressed perfect repose. She looked as if the Angel of Death had laid hand upon her head, and said to that storm-tossed life, “Peace—be still.” “And there had fallen a Great Calm.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
DAY AFTER THE WEDDING.
What is the world to them?