“Nothing can express my rage. Greville, to advise me! You that used to envy my smiles. How with cool indifference to advise me! Oh, that is the worst of all. But I will not, no, I will not rage. If I was with you I would murder you and myself boath. I will go to London, go into every excess of vice till I dye, a miserable broken-hearted wretch, and leave my fate as a warning to young whomen never to be too good, for now you have made me good you have abandoned me, and some violent end shall finish our connexion if it is to finish.”
A long pause, and tenderer thoughts stole over her. Her hand delayed. Must the last words be all cruel poisoned darts? Ah, no. She wrote again slower, the tears this time falling in large drops like blood upon the letter.
“It is enough. I have paper that Greville wrote on. He has folded it up. He wet the wafer. How I envy thee the place of Emma’s lips that woud give worlds, had she them, to kiss those lips. I onely wish a wafer was my onely rival. But I submit to what God and Greville pleases.”
God and Greville! She laid down the pen.
It is not too much to say that with that letter died the last remnant of virginity in Emma’s heart. It had survived much, but that mean treachery slaughtered it. It is another and a worse, though never a wholly bad woman, who survives—a woman dangerously scorned who will dangerously repay it to Greville and others. She wrote once more before Sir William returned.
“Pray write, for nothing will make me so angry, and it is not to your interest to disoblige me, for you don’t know the power I have here. If you affront me I will make him marry me. God bless you forever.”
A different woman, as may well be seen, but Greville did not realize it. It must be owned he played his cards from this time clumsily both with the girl and Sir William. He sent that wild threat to his uncle because it would set him on his guard. He wrote with a cool superior friendship to Emma, and quick as lightning she caught his tone, seeing all lost, and replied in kind. Every nerve, every sense, was on guard now. She would not injure herself by trying to make trouble between Sir William and his favourite friend. No, though her girdle should burst, to use her own graphic phrase, she would keep her temper, play her game and win—and win. And Greville should see it and suffer! He had more cause for annoyance than she knew. Miss Middleton refused him, an expected post slipped through his fingers, and it was all in all to him to be well with Sir William.
She helped him in her own way and for her own ends. Not a word of complaint—a summer calm, kindly references to Greville, awaited the uneasy Sir William when he returned to the Palazzo Sessa. And when they were alone she pulled her little stool beside him, and looking up with a smile half sad, half arch, said softly:
“I have my wisdom teeth at last, Sir William. You have seen the last of the silly impatient Emma. She spread her wings and flew away far beyond Capri while you were gone. It is a happy grateful girl now who will love you forever and ever, who did not even know until your dear beloved face was out of sight how little she could do without you.”
He stooped forward and looked into her face, scarcely believing: