"You have deceived yourself, you are the victim of your own prejudices. You cannot say I did more than humor your decision!" I returned, quickly.
"You only acted a womanly and natural part, lied sweetly in every glance of your bright eyes, in every turn of your graceful figure, in every word on your red lips! I don't blame you; you are a woman."
"You are too cruel! you will repent this some day; it will be the bitterest thing you have to remember; the recollection of it will make you suffer as you have made me suffer."
"Never fear but I shall have enough to suffer, if the present is any earnest of the future for me! Your kindest wishes will be more than realized. For a proud man," he said, with a low, bitter laugh, flinging from him the hand he held, "for a proud man, I have had some humiliations that you would hardly believe if I told you! You could hardly understand them in your simplicity; your soft, woman's heart would bleed, perhaps, but it would heal itself too soon to allay in any great degree my wretchedness. Your morning-glory tenderness would droop before the fierceness of my pain, it would die in my hot grasp!—I will not ask your pity, but spare me your detestation. Save the aversion that your eyes showed then, for those who have deserved it better at your hands."
There was a sound of voices from within, a window near us was thrown open, and a group of people, laughing and talking, stepped out on the piazza. Hastily restoring my mask to its place, I turned away and entered the house through the window they had opened.
"You may have deceived one who is indifferent to you; you cannot deceive one who loves you," said a low voice in my ear, and the black figure I instinctively dreaded stood beside me. "For the sake of heaven, come with me, one moment!"
"Who are you?" I murmured, shrinking back.
He bent down and whispered a name in my ear, at which the color left my cheek, the light my eye, almost the life my pulses.
"Will you come?"
I bent my head without a word, and followed him out of the hall, down the terrace, through the winding paths of the shrubbery, across the garden; hurrying on to suit his fierce pace, but chilled to the heart with a terror that was no longer nameless.