"It was that, then!" she murmured; "that was the reason! And that then was the reason that I hated my father--no, he was not my father--and that he hated me! That--but then she must have known it! no, no, it cannot be!"
She had sprung from her chair.
"Where are you going?" I asked, seizing her hand.
She tore herself loose and rushed from the room.
I remained, hesitating what to do; I feared for a moment she was going to kill herself; and then I heard her coming back, not alone.
She re-entered, dragging after her the decrepit form of an old woman, whom under other circumstances I should have taken for a housekeeper or something of the sort, and in whom I recognized, with a shudder of disgust, old Pahlen.
How this horrible creature, after her escape from prison, found her way to her mistress, I never learned; but the closer the relations that had existed, as mistress and servant, between them, the fiercer was the rupture, and more frightful the reckoning.
"Here! here!" cried Constance, dragging the woman almost to my feet, "here she is! George. I adjure you by heaven and all that is holy, kill this monster who would have plunged me into horrible crime."
Constance's words, her passion, my presence, all combined overwhelmed the wicked woman. I saw in her old wrinkled face, in the sidelong look of her evil eyes, that she knew her guilt; and Constance saw it as well as I; for as the creature with faltering words tried to frame some excuse, she cut her short with a cry of rage, almost a yell, that long after sounded in my ears; "Begone! out of my sight! wretch! monster!"
The wretch was no doubt glad of the chance of escape for which her sidelong eyes had been searching before, and rushed out of the door. I never saw her again, and know not how long afterwards she dragged out her wretched existence, nor when and how it ended.