‘Nell, you shock and terrify me!’ exclaimed the young man. ‘Do you know what you are saying? Do you know that in harbouring such feelings you are as guilty as if you had committed the crime itself? What has this poor lady done to injure you that you should cherish such animosity against her?’
‘What has she done?’ echoed Nell fiercely. ‘Why she has taken my lover—the man whom I adored—from me. Torn him from my very arms. She has destroyed my happiness—my life. Made the world a howling wilderness. Left my heart bare, and striped, and empty. And I would make her die a thousand deaths for it if I could. I would tear her false heart from her body and throw it to the dogs to eat.’
Nell’s eyes were flashing. Her head was thrown back defiantly in the air as she spoke; her teeth were clenched; she looked like a beautiful, bloodthirsty tigress panting to fasten on her prey. But Hugh Owen saw no beauty in her attitudes or expression. He rose hastily from his chair, and moved towards the door. His action arrested her attention.
‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘Where are you going? Why do you leave me alone?’
‘Because I cannot bear to listen to you whilst you blaspheme like that, Nell. Because it is too dreadful to me to hear you railing against the wisdom of God, who has seen fit to bring you to a sense of the life you were leading, by wresting it from your grasp. You have called me your friend. So I am; but it is not the act of a friend to encourage you in such vindictive feelings. I could remain your friend though I knew you guilty of every weakness common to human nature, but I dare not take the hand of a woman who deliberately desires the death of a fellow-creature. Depend on it, Nell, that this unfortunate lady, who has married the man who behaved so basely to you, will have enough trouble without you wishing her more. Were it justifiable to harbour the thought of vengeance on any one, yours might, with more propriety, be directed towards him who has probably deceived his wife as much as he deceived you!’
‘If that is the spirit in which you receive my confidence,’ said Nell hotly, ‘I wish I had never confided in you. Perhaps the next thing you will consider it right to do will be to proclaim my antecedents to the people of Usk. Make them the subject of your next sermon maybe! I am sure they would form a most edifying discourse on the wickedness of the world (and London world in particular), especially when the victim is close at hand to be trotted out in evidence of the truth of what you say.’
Hugh raised his dark, melancholy eyes to her reproachfully.
‘Have I deserved that of you, Nell?’ he asked.
‘I don’t care whether you have or not. I see very plainly that I have made a fool of myself. There was no occasion for me to tell you anything; but I fancied I should have your sympathy, and blurted it out, and my reward is to be accused of blasphemy. It is my own fault; but now that you have wrung my secret from me, for pity’s sake keep it.’
‘Oh, Nell, how can you so distrust me? Your secret is as sacred with me as if you were in your grave. What a brute you must think me to imagine otherwise.’