There was an altercation of voices over my head. I caught the iron rods, and, resting my toes upon a high bank, swung my body up, and again looked into the room. Dubrosc was now angrily pacing over the floor.
“Bah!” he ejaculated, with a look of cold brutality; “you think to make me jealous, I believe. That isn’t possible. I was never so, and you can’t do it. I know you love the cursed Yankee. I watched you in the ship—on the island, too. You had better keep him company where he is going. Ha, ha! Jealous, indeed! Your pretty cousins have grown up since I saw them last.”
The insinuation sent the blood in a hot stream through my veins.
It appeared to have a similar effect upon the woman; for, starting from her seat, she looked towards Dubrosc, her eyes flashing like globes of fire.
“Yes!” she exclaimed; “and if you dare whisper your polluting thoughts to either of them, lawless as is this land, you know that I still possess the power to punish you. You are villain enough, Heaven knows, for anything; but they shall not fall: one victim is enough—and such a one!”
“Victim, indeed!” replied the man, evidently cowed by the other’s threat. “You call yourself victim, Marie? The wife of the handsomest man in Mexico? Ha, ha!”
There was something of irony in the latter part of the speech, and the emphasis placed on the word “wife.”
“Yes; you may well taunt me with your false priest, you unfeeling wretch! Oh, Santisima Madre!” continued she, dropping back into her chair, and pressing her head between her hands. “Beguiled—beggared—almost unsexed! and yet I never loved the man! It was not love, but madness—madness and fascination!”
The last words were uttered in soliloquy, as though she regarded not the presence of her companion.
“I don’t care a claco,” cried he fiercely, and evidently piqued at her declaration; “not one claco whether you ever loved me or not! That’s not the question now, but this is: You must make yourself known to your Croesus of an uncle here, and demand that part of your fortune that he still clutches within his avaricious old fingers. You must do this to-morrow.”