She has no uncertainty now. The man exclaiming sweet, is he who has caused all her life’s bitterness. The voice, no longer disguised, is that of Richard Darke!
Chapter Sixty One.
A ruffian triumphant.
Wild thoughts has Helen Armstrong, thus apostrophised, with not a word to say in return. She knows it would be idle; but without this, her very indignation holds her dumb—that and despair.
For a time he, too, is silent, as if surrendering his soul to delightful exultation.
Soon he resumes speech in changed tone, and interrogatively:—“Do you know who’s talking to you? Or must I tell you, Nell? You’ll excuse familiarity in an old friend, won’t you?” Receiving no response, he continues, in the same sneering style: “Yes, an old friend, I say it; one you should well remember, though it’s some time since we met, and a good way from here. To assist your recollection, let me recall an incident occurring at our last interview. Perhaps ’twill be enough to name the place and time? Wall, it was under a magnolia, in the State of Mississippi; time ten o’clock of night, moonlight, if I rightly remember, as now. It matters not the day of the month being different, or any other trivial circumstance, so long as the serious ones are so. And they are, thank God for it! Beneath the magnolia I knelt at your feet, under this tree, which is a live-oak, you lie at mine.”
He pauses, but not expecting reply. The woman, so tortured speaks not; neither stirs she. The only motion visible throughout her frame is the swell and fall of her bosom—tumultuously beating.
He who stands, over well knows it is throbbing in pain. But no compassion has he for that; on the contrary, it gives gratification; again drawing from him the exultant exclamation—“Sweet—sweet!”