“I am glad you could sleep,” Mrs. Varian answered, as she stepped across the threshold and confronted the lovely girl whose heart she was about to wound so cruelly.
But, somehow, she did not shrink from the task for a change had come over her feelings toward Cinthia, and she experienced a sort of fierce pleasure in the task now before her. In a way, it would be taking revenge on a woman who had wronged Mrs. Varian, and who was dead now—dead, but unforgiven in her lonely grave.
For this girl, her daughter, how could Mrs. Varian cherish any love?
Perhaps something like pity touched her heart as the large, soft dark eyes turned upon her so wistfully, but she fought down the sympathy, saying to herself:
“Her mother had no mercy on me—none! And the same blood runs in Cinthia’s veins. She could not be trusted to bring her husband anything but ill.”
She threw back her magnificent head with a haughty motion, and said, curtly:
“Sit down, Cinthia, for what I am about to tell you may possibly ruffle your nerves.”
Cinthia obeyed with surprising meekness for one so proud; but the imperious woman before her had the habit of command, and every one seemed to obey.
She, too, took a chair, as if perhaps her own nerves were not quite steady. Then she said:
“Cinthia, you have done wrong in disobeying your father’s commands, when he told you there were reasons why you should not marry my son.”