False! I defy you both:
I have endured you with an ear of fire;
Your tongues have struck hot irons on my face.
CYRIL TOURNEUR.—The Revenger's Tragedy.
There was an appalling struggle in Marmaduke's breast that day as he reached home. The terrible scene which had passed between him and Mrs. Vyner, with its plainly expressed hint at assassination, made him shudder as he again and again went over it in memory. False and heartless he had known her; but for this he had not been prepared. And he felt a sort of sickness come over him as he reflected on the peril which he had escaped, in Vyner's not coming to listen at the very moment when she had proposed, and he had affected to accept the proposition! He would then have been accused of having really meant to perpetrate the crime; for who would have credited his disavowal? who would have credited his assurance that he was but feigning what his soul abhorred?
By a retrospective glance at his own conduct, and at the peril he had escaped, he was led to meditate on the nature of this woman; and by a reflection on her criminal thoughts, he was shown the criminality of his own.
This revenge which he had planned so remorselessly, what was it but a crime? If he had been wronged by a heartless woman, was it for him thus to measure out the punishment? and did her jilting him deserve so terrible a retribution?
After all, was not vengeance a "wild justice," but only the justice of savages? Was it worthy of civilized, christianized man? And for a man to wreak it on a woman, was not that petty, ignoble, more like spite than retribution?
Such were the thoughts which possessed him. That they never suggested themselves before, arises from the fact of his never having before been cool enough to question the legitimacy of his feelings. But now they staggered him; now they came upon him like a remorse; and he relinquished his scheme of vengeance!
The next day, impelled by some strange impulse which he could not explain, he went to the Vyners. Violet observed the agitation of his manner, and attributed it to meeting her again, after what had evidently transpired during her absence. She was, therefore, considerably surprised when he begged for a few moments' private conversation with her, at the same time entreating Rose to leave them alone. She had intended to refuse the request, but Rose had departed before she could open her lips. Rose too well understood the purport of that interview, not to be anxious to forward it by her absence.
"Mr. Ashley," said Violet, coldly, "there is no subject upon which I can hear you alone; you will oblige me, therefore, by suffering me to follow my sister."
"Violet!"
"Mr. Ashley, by whose authority do you address me in that manner?"