Bressant made no reply to her uncanny petition, and a silence followed. Abbie stood wringing her hands, waving her head, and drawing her breath sobbingly between her teeth. Was she the same woman—stately, and almost beautiful—who had spoken so loftily and tenderly but a few minutes before? Are human generosity and affection founded on no securer basis? Her appearance was now revolting. Suddenly a thought struck her.
"Ah! but she—she can't escape," she broke forth, seizing upon the idea with a grisly eagerness of exultation. "You can't get her away from me; I know her, oh! I know her, and I condemn her, I hate her—God! how I hate her. She shall never be forgiven—never, never. You can never cheat me out of her, for I know her."
Abbie pressed both hands to her head.
"You had better hold your tongue, old woman," Bressant said, in a low voice, and a deadlier passion than anger looked from his eyes as he fastened them upon her. "You're so hungry to send a soul to hell, take care you don't find yourself there. Do you think your past life can save you? Wait till I've told you what it has been. You began by blasting a true man's life, trusting too easily, against all internal evidence, to the lies that were told you about him. Next, you married the liar, not loving him, but so that the other might hear it, and believe you had forgotten him; so you acted a lie to him, and prostituted yourself bodily and spiritually to gratify your pride and revenge. Not the sort of thing that gets people to heaven, so far, is it?"
Abbie still pressed her hands to her head, and stared before her without speaking.
"You were false to your marriage vows; after that, you neglected your husband no less than he you; you never tried to make yourself lovable to him; you were the only wronged one! you could do no wrong yourself! At last you had a son."
She raised her eyes, which, during the last few minutes had become bloodshot, and fixed them fearfully upon the young man's face, as he continued:
"You loved him, as most females do love their young, and yet not so generously as most. It was not as his father's child, but only as your own, that he was dear to you; he was your child, a part of yourself, and you loved him only because you loved yourself.
"When he was still a baby you left your husband's house, and thereby, if justice were done, forfeited the recognition of good women, and pure society; but you took great credit to yourself because you left your son and your money behind you. Was it nothing in the balance, then, the scandal, worse than any poverty, which the recovery of your property would have caused? Nothing but self-sacrifice, to leave a sickly child to all the advantages that wealth could give it? Well, a month afterward, in spite of wealth, your son died."
At this announcement, Abbie's convulsive strength, which had thus far served to keep her erect and motionless, exhaled itself in a long groan, and left her placid and nerveless. Seeing her about to fall, Bressant put forth his hands and grasped her arms below the shoulder, holding her thus while he went on. Her eyes were closed and her head fell forward on her bosom; but, so blinded was the young man by the remorseless passion which had gradually been working up within him, he failed to perceive that the old woman's ears were no longer sensible to his voice, nor her heart sensitive to his words.