"Yet you came back at last," Vera murmurs. "Had you repented of your hasty desertion?"
"I had learned the truth, Vera, through the dying confession of Mrs. Cleveland's weak tool. I had learned how terribly I had been deceived, and that I had deserted my angel wife for naught. Vera, did she curse my memory when she lay dying of a broken heart?"
"She never named you either in praise or blame, father. I had some vague impression that you were dead. I knew no better until I overheard Mrs. Cleveland telling some one that you had deserted my mother before I was born, and that you were a low, drunken, brutal wretch, who had abused and maltreated her from the first."
"Oh, my God, my God! that such demons should walk the earth!" the man groans through his clenched teeth.
He rises and walks up and down the floor, struggling with his strong, overmastering agitation.
"Vera, we three—you and I, and our lost loved one—have been wronged as, it seems to me, never mortals were before. My heart is on fire with rage and hate for the devil who has so blasted our lives. It seems to me that I can never rest until I strike back. Vera, shall we not avenge ourselves?"
His dark, passionate eyes fill with the fire that rages in his soul. Vera looks up at him, half-fearfully.
"How, father?" she queries, slowly.
The heavy gloom deepens in his night-black eyes.
"How—I cannot tell!" he says, hoarsely. "But I will bide my time. I will wait and watch. Edith's wrongs shall not go unavenged."