"And these words,—they were not true?" eagerly asked Eleanor, resting her hand on Randolph's arm.
"They were true," answered Randolph. "It was their fatal truth which caused the bride to fall like a corpse, and covered the face of the bridegroom with shame and despair."
Eleanor's bosom heaved above the edge of her bridal robe; her lips curled with scorn; "And knowing this fatal truth, this lover sought her hand in marriage? O, shame! shame!"
"But hear the sequel of the story," Randolph continued, and well it was for him, at that instant, that no sudden glow from the hearth lit up his livid and corrugated face,—"What, think you, was the course of the plighted wife, when she came to her senses?"
"She spurned from her side this unworthy lover,—she crushed every thought of love—"
"No, dearest, no! Even in the presence of her father and the wedding-guests, she took the bridegroom by the hand, and although her face was pale as death, said, with a firm eye and unfaltering voice, 'Behold my husband! As heaven is above us, I will wed none but him!'"
"O, base and shameless! base and shameless!" cried Eleanor, the scorn of her tone and of her look beyond all power of words,—"to speak thus, and take by the hand a man whose veins were polluted by the blood of a thrice accursed race!"
Randolph raised his hand to his forehead; what thoughts were burning there, need not be told. Shading his eyes, he saw Eleanor before him, beautiful and voluptuous, in her bridal robe, her bosom swelling into view; but with unmeasured scorn in the curve of her proud lip, in the lightning glance of her eyes.
And after that gaze, he said in a low voice, the fatal words,—
"Eleanor, what would you say, were I to inform you, that my veins are also polluted by the blood of this thrice accursed race?"