It was a revenge worthy of a woman—of a hard-hearted woman—one who has the fires of baleful jealousy burning in her heart.
It is said that a jealous woman is fit to reign in hell, and it is easy to believe it. Serena was half insane with jealous wrath, and would hesitate at nothing in the way of her scheme to punish Keith Kenyon for not loving her. As though it were possible for Keith to control and direct his own heart! For love is not a matter of our own volition. It must go where it is sent by fate; we can not steer its course. And so Serena, with her mad determination to revolutionize nature, must needs attempt to wreck two lives already saddened by the darkest and most bitter of sorrows—a sorrow more cruel than death.
All this had flashed through Beatrix's brain as she stood there, her eyes upon Serena's pale, triumphant face, her heart sinking slowly into the very depths of dark despair. Keith's life was ruined—ruined irretrievably, his fortune gone, and the heavy, clanking chains of a marriage which could never be a real marriage, after all, fettering his every movement. And she was to blame for it all. In loving him and giving herself to him she had signed Keith Kenyon's death-warrant—a fearful, living death in life. She shuddered convulsively and sank into a seat.
"I cannot congratulate you, Serena," she returned, at last, forcing her white lips to speak, "because this marriage of yours is unnatural and wrong. No marriage will ever be sanctified without love—true love—and you have wedded this old man for his money."
Serena started angrily, and the red blood suffused her cheek for a moment.
"You had better choose your words in addressing me!" she snarled. "I will not bear your insults. I have come here to see Keith. Am I to see him or not?"
"You can not!" returned the young wife, bravely. "He is very ill, and I am his nurse. I would not permit any one for whom he cared to come to his bedside; I most certainly, then, will not admit you!"
Her voice rang out clear and determined. Serena's face grew ghastly white, and her pale eyes scintillated.
"I will make you sorry for that!" she stormed. "How came you here? Who constituted you Keith Kenyon's nurse?"