“Don’t talk to me any more. You will drive me frantic. Dishonesty! That is the low vice of ignorant and debased natures, for which they are sometimes sent to the State’s prison.”
“And yet which is more excusable ‘in ignorant and debased natures’ than in intelligent and exalted ones,” said he sternly.
“Dishonesty! What have I to do with that? This estate is legally mine. To keep it is not even injustice. Why do you talk to me so?” she exclaimed, tearing at her bosom, as she wildly walked up and down the terrace, as if to pluck away the burning pain there. “Why do you torture—exasperate—madden me so?”
“It is not I, Garnet. No mere words that I could speak could disturb your bosom’s peace. It is the awful conscience there that refuses to be silent,” said Hugh solemnly.
She paused before him, trembling all over; clenching her chest with her spread hands, as though to clutch the passion there; her eyes burning in their intense lurid fire, in fearful contrast with the ghastly paleness of her brow and cheeks, and gasped between her white lips:
“You are an incendiary, sent here to convulse my soul with war, until Reason herself is hurled from her throne! Man! man! You know what civil war in a nation is. Do you know—can you guess what the internal conflict of a divided soul is? No, you do not. Your well-balanced mind, like a well-governed State, is always quiet. But mine! Oh, you have raised an insurrection in my soul that can never, never be suppressed! Oh, man! man! it is a grievous wrong that you have done me. I was so highly happy in my glorious hopes and prospects until you came. You have killed all my joy. But do not think,” she exclaimed, with another violent outburst of passion; “do not think that you have succeeded! Do not! Never suppose that to please your fanaticism I will give up my estate—never! never!”
“No, Garnet. Not to please my fanaticism, as you call it, will you do so, but in obedience to your awakened and aroused conscience will you do so.”
“What! Never! What! resign all my great plans of usefulness, of benevolence, of wide philanthropy? Renounce all my glorious prospects of world honor—perhaps renown? Man! do you know what you ask of me? They are worth my soul’s price. Give up my fortune! Do you know its amount? Why, my income is almost a queen’s revenue. Do you know, as I do, with what power it clothes me?”
“I know the vast amount and great power of your wealth, Garnet. And I know the great good that you, with your wonderful beauty, talent, and enterprise could do with it; the great distinction you could gain by it. I know your pride, your ambition, your burning aspiration after worldly glory, and I feel the stupendous force of the temptation that is upon you.”
“I tell you, my power, my plans and prospects are worth almost my soul’s price!” she exclaimed vehemently.