"How delightfully jealous Richmond is, to be sure, of his pauper bride and her sailor lover; how his friends will talk when they go back to the city—and how Mrs. Wildair, of Richmond Hall, who is too much of a fool ever to know how to carry out an intrigue properly, will be laughed at. Ha! ha! ha! what delicious scenes have been witnessed here since we came, to be sure."
What demon was it leaped into Georgia's eyes at that moment—what meant her awful, calm, and terrible look?
"How will it read in the papers? 'We are pained to learn that the young and beautiful wife of Richmond Wildair, Esq., of Burnfield, eloped last night. The gay Adonis is Captain Arlingford, U. S. N., who was, we believe, at the time, the honored guest of the wronged husband. Mr. Wildair has pursued the guilty couple, and a duel will probably be the consequence of this sad affair.' Ha! ha! What do you think of my imagination, Georgia?"
No reply; but, oh! that dreadful look!
"Oh, the insolence of earthworms like you," continued Freddy, in her bitter gibing tone, "you dare to lift your eyes to one who would have honored you too much by letting you wipe the dust off his shoes. You, the parish pauper, reared by the bounty of a wretched old hag—you, the child of a strolling player, who died on the roadside like a dog—you, the——"
But she never finished the sentence. With the awful shriek of a demon—a shriek that those who heard could never forget, Georgia sprang upon her, caught her by the throat, and hurled her with the strength of madness against the wall.
With a faint cry, strangled in its birth, Freddy held up her hands to save herself; but she was as a child in the fierce grasp of the woman she had infuriated.
Ere the last cadence of that terrible shriek had ceased ringing through the house, every one, servants, guests and all, were on the spot. And there they saw Georgia standing like an incarnate fury, and Frederica Richmond lying motionless on the ground, her face deluged in blood.