“Say on, sir.”
Dr. Hutton began, and, softening as much as possible, for her sake, the conduct of General Garnet, related the atrocious history of his life and actions—first, how, aided by her father, he sundered the engagement existing between Alice Chester and Milton Sinclair and forcibly married the heart-broken child; their wedded life of tyranny on his side and suffrance on hers; the separation of the mother and daughter; in after years his betrothal of Elsie and Magnus; his subsequent attempt to break their engagement from mercenary motives; his furious anger at their marriage; the arts by which he gained from his wife a deed of the Mount Calm estate; his revenge in disinheriting his daughter; the taunts and cruelties by which he had nearly caused the death of his wife, and had finally driven her from him; and lastly, the legal acumen with which, for the sake of more surely impoverishing his wife and child, he had conveyed the estate, instead of bequeathing it, knowing that the will, upon account of its crying injustice, would have been set aside by the courts in favor of the widow and daughter.
“There, Miss Seabright, that is the way in which your godfather first, and you after him, came into possession of the Mount Calm property.”
Garnet Seabright had not listened patiently to this recital. Many times her large, heavily-fringed eyes blazed and darkened; her cheeks crimsoned and faded; and, though she pressed both hands to her chest, her bosom heaved and fell like the waves of the sea. Many times she interrupted him, and nothing, perhaps, but the felt law of justice enabled Dr. Hutton to persevere to the close of his ungracious and unwelcome narrative.
When he had closed by revealing the hypocrisy, treachery, and revenge of General Garnet, all the color was suddenly struck out from her face, as though she had been blasted by a stroke of lightning, so white, so still, and aghast was her aspect. Dr. Hutton hastened to her side and took her hand. At the touch she rose in trepidation, and, scarcely heeding what she said, exclaimed:
“Not now! Not one single word now! I must be alone, or die! To-morrow!—to-morrow I will hear you!” and hurried, or rather reeled, from the room.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE STRUGGLE OF LOVE AND AMBITION.
Her passion-tortured soul,
Like a ship dashed by fierce encountering tides,
And of her pilot spoiled, drives round and round,