"Part!" he exclaimed. "Do you think I am come to part with you? Do you imagine that I will leave you and Edward—whom I now hate as much as I once loved him—to exult over my despair, and to banish me from your house after mine has been tamed into a hell—"
"What words do you dare to utter? Do not blaspheme. Your house is sanctified by the presence of an angel."
"It is haunted by a fiend, Ellen,—that woman who betrayed us,—that woman who, in one of her paroxysms of rage, broke open my desk, and drew from it those fatal letters which she sent to Edward in the vain hope of separating us for ever. She it was who intercepted and destroyed the letter you wrote to me a fortnight ago; and she had the audacity to admit this iniquity, when last night I charged her with it. She gloried in the act, and cast back in my teeth the reproaches I addressed to her. Then, in my fury, I spoke out. I tore aside the veil from Alice's eyes. I broke my promises. I told the mother of my child why, and how, I had married her. I saw her tremble with horror, and turn from me with shuddering aversion, when I proclaimed in her pure ears my guilty passion for you, and my resolution, strong as death, never to give you up. I have broken every tie; I have renounced every duty; and now you must be mine—you shall be mine. I have long been your slave, but I knew it must come to this at last. You have struggled in vain; you cannot escape me. My love must be the bane of your life or its joy—its ruin or its glory; and unrequited as it has been, it yet has stood, and will stand, between you and your husband to the day of your death, and turn your wedded joys into deadly poisons."
"Your power is gone—your threats are vain; I defy your vengeance; I scorn your hatred. Denounce me to the world and to Edward. Tell them all that it was not love, but terror that made me tremble before you. Tell them that you have tortured me, and that I have writhed in agonies under your secret power. Tell them that my soul has been wrung, that my heart has been bruised. Tell them that you have changed my nature and made me what I am; and then let Edward, and the world, and Heaven itself, judge between you and me."
"You defy my vengeance? You scorn my hatred? Am I not here, weak and imprudent woman? Have you not written to me letters of frantic entreaty? Have you not broken the commands of your despotic and jealous husband? You have not been wise in your anger, or prudent in your wrath."
"You have no power against me if I confess the whole truth to
Edward,—if I kneel at his feet—"
"And perjure yourself!"
"Oh, talk not to me of perjury,—talk not to me of crime. You have steeped yourself in guilt and iniquity; and be my sin what it may, upon your head it shall rest if you drive me to this act,—if you refuse to release me—"
A dreadful smile curled Henry's lip; and he said, with a sneer, "What an admirably got-up story this will be for Edward! It is a pity you did not think of it sooner. It would have appeared more plausible than it will now do. An accidental homicide, carefully suppressed for four years, and confessed, at last, for the purpose of accounting for our intimacy! Your husband will admire the fertility of your powers of invention, which, by the way, he seems, from the tenor of his letter, to be pretty well acquainted with."
"Henry, your malice, your wickedness, cannot extend as far as this. You are not a demon; and it would be diabolical to refuse your testimony to my confession; besides, there are other witnesses—"