"Wretch—ye dare not!" said Beatrix, scornfully, while gazing with something like pity on the fair face the pencil of Vandyke had traced in other times. "Yes, Lady Alison, I hated thee in life, but in death I can respect thee. Oh! Randal, she shared thy wedded love; but was it more fortunate than mine? It was—it was; for she is at rest in her grave, while I still linger here."
"Pity you are not there too! Enough! I am tired of these eternal complaints; and were ye fair as Venus——but look to my hand—what say its lines to-night?"
In her long, lean, and wrinkled fingers she took his ungloved hand, and he half withdrew it, with ill-concealed disgust.
"Ha!" screamed Beatrix, in a terrible voice; "you shrink from my touch now! Oh! Randal, Randal!" she added, in a tone of intense bitterness, "to kiss these faded hands was once a boon of love to thee. Oh! Randal Clermont, have you so quite forgotten these days as to feel no pity for the being you once loved so well?"
"Hum!" muttered the Lord, impatiently.
"How different was I then from what I am now!" she exclaimed, pressing her hands upon her breast, as if it would burst.
"The deuce!" Clermistonlee whistled.
"Yes, base and ungrateful! the hand that now ye loathe was then white as the new fallen snow, and these grey locks were like the dewy wing of the raven. My eyes could then look love to thine, that flashed with the youth, the joy, and the brightness of twenty summers. Who that saw us then, would dream that we are the same? I am no longer young, no longer lovely, and thou—art still a man."
"Crush me if this is not ridiculous! art nearly done, old lady?"
"No—there is a rival in thy way!"