"And she will not die?"
"No."
"Oh, thank heaven!" and, totally overcome, she sank for the first time in her life, almost fainting into her seat.
Richmond looked at her with deep, scornful eyes.
"You to thank Heaven!—you to take that name on your lips!—you, who this night attempted a murder! Oh, woman do you not fear the vengeance of that Heaven you invoke!"
"Oh, Richmond! spare me not. I deserve all you would say. Oh! in all this world there is not another so lost, so fallen, so guilty as I."
"You are right, there is not; for one who would attempt the life of a young and innocent girl must be steeped in guilt so black that Hades itself must shudder. Had you caused the death of Frederica Richmond, as you tried to, I myself would have gone to the nearest magistrate, had you arrested, and forced you off this very night to the county jail. I would have prosecuted you, though every one else in the world was for you; and I would have gone to behold you perish on the scaffold, and then—and then only—felt that justice was satisfied."
She almost shrieked, as she covered her face with her hands from his terrible gaze, but, unheeding her anguish, he went on in a calm, pitiless voice:
"You, one night not long since, told me you wished you had never married me. That you really ever wished it I do not now believe; for one who could commit a cold-blooded murder would not hesitate at a lie—a lie. Do you hear, Georgia? But I tell you now, that I wish I had been dead and in my grave ere I ever met Georgia Darrell!"
"Oh, Richmond! Spare me! spare me!" she cried, in a dying voice.