Carmela liberated herself from his grasp, and said bitterly:
"I fancied that since you left the western prairies, you contented yourself with ordering your slaves to torture your victims, and did not descend to the part of hangman."
"Oh!" he said, furiously.
"Come," she continued, "this farce wearies me, so let us bring it to a finale. I know you too well now, not to be aware that you would not hesitate to proceed to odious extremities, if I would not submit to your wishes. Since you insist on it, I will explain my thoughts to you."
Drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing on him a bright and challenging glance, she continued in a firm and distinct voice—
"You ask me if I hate you? No, I do not hate you, I despise you!"
"Silence, wretched girl!"
"Yourself ordered me to speak, and I shall not be silent till I have told you all. Yes, I despise you, because, instead of respecting a poor girl whom you, coward as you are, carried off from her relations and friends you, torture her, and become her executioner. I despise you, because you are a man without a soul; an old man who might be my father, and yet you do not blush to ask me to love you, under some ignoble pretext of my resemblance with some woman I have no doubt you killed."
"Carmela!"
"Lastly, I despise you, because you are a furious brute, who only possess one human feeling, 'the love of murder!' because there is nothing sacred in your sight, and if I was weak enough to consent to your wishes, you would make me die of despair, by taking a delight in breaking my heart."