"Oh, Minnette! what have I done? If I have injured you, I am very sorry. Indeed, indeed, it was unintentional. I would sooner die than have any one hate me!" said Celeste, clasping her hands imploringly.
"Injured me!" almost shrieked Minnette, clutching her arm so fiercely, that Celeste cried out with pain. "Injured me, did you say? Yes—the greatest injury one woman can ever do another you have done me. From early childhood you have crossed my path, and, under your artfully assumed vail of simplicity, won the love of the only being under heaven I ever cared for—won him with your silly smiles, your baby face, and cowardly tears; you, a poor, nameless beggar—a dependent on the bounty of others. Hate you!—yes, from the first moment I beheld you, I hated you with an intensity you can never dream of until you feel the full weight of my vengeance; for I tell you I will be avenged; yes, I would peril my own soul, if by so doing I could wreak still more dire revenge on your head. I tell you, you began a dangerous game when you trifled with me. I am no sickly, sentimental fool, to break my heart and die—no; I shall drag down with me all who have stood in my way, and then die, if need be, gloating over the agonies I have made them suffer. Beware, I tell you; for no tigress, robbed of her young, can be fiercer than this newly awakened heart!"
She hurled Celeste from her, as she ceased, with such violence, that she reeled and fell; and, striking her head against a projecting stone, lay for some minutes stunned and motionless. A dark stream of blood flowed slowly from the wound; and Minnette stood gazing upon it with a fiendish smile on her beautiful face. Slowly, and with difficulty, Celeste arose—pressing her handkerchief to her face to stanch the flowing blood; and, lifting her soft, pitying eyes to the wild, vindictive face above her, she said:
"Minnette, I forgive you. You are crazed, and know not what you do. But, oh! Minnette, you wrong me. I never intentionally injured you—never, as heaven is my witness! I have tried to love you as a sister always. Never, never—by word, or thought, or deed—have I willingly given you a moment's pain. I would sooner cut off my right hand than offend you. Oh, Minnette! can we never be friends?"
"Friends!" repeated Minnette, with a wild laugh; "yes, when the serpent dwells with the dove; when the tiger mates with the lamb; when two jealous woman love each other—then we will be friends. Perjure yourself not before me. Though an angel from heaven were to descend to plead for you, I would neither forgive you nor believe your words."
"What have I done to make you hate me so?"
"You brazen hypocrite! do you dare to ask me what you have done? He did, too! A precious pair of innocents, both of you!" said Minnette, with her bitter, jeering laugh. "Little need to tell you what you have done. Did you not win the love of Louis Oranmore from me by your skillful machinations? He loved me before he saw you. You knew it; and yet, from the very first moment you beheld him, you set to work to make him hate me. Do not deny it, you barefaced, artful impostor! Did I not hear you both to-night?—and was not the demon within me prompting me to spring forward and stab you both to the heart? But my vengeance, though delayed, shall be none the less sure, and, when the time comes, woe to you and to him; for if I must perish, I shall not perish alone."
During this fierce, excited speech—every word of which had stabbed her to the heart—Celeste had staggered against a tree; and, covering her face with her hands, stood like one suddenly pierced by a sword; every word burned into her very brain like fire, as she stood like one fainting—dying. By a great effort, she crushed back the flood of her emotions; and when Minnette ceased, she lifted up her face—pale as death, but firm and earnest.
"Minnette Wiseman," she said, in a voice of gentle dignity, so unusual to her that the dark, passionate girl gazed on her in astonishment, "as heaven hears me, I am guilty of none of these things of which you accuse me. If Louis Oranmore loved you, I knew it not, or I would not have listened to him; if he won your heart, I dreamed not of it, or he should never have won mine. I thought you loved no one but yourself. I never—never dreamed you cared for him. For all the misery he has caused us both, may heaven forgive him, as I do! If he loved you first, you have a prior claim to his heart. I will tell him so to-morrow, and never listen to him more."
She strove to speak calmly to the end; but at the last her voice died away in a low tone of utter despair.