She pressed her hands wildly to her temples, with a low moan. It was not so easy as she thought to hate where she had loved so passionately.
“Do you think it is a light thing,” she asked, hotly, “for a girl to reveal the secrets of her heart, as I have revealed mine to-night? Do you think there has been no sacrifice of pride or modesty on my part to tell you what I have told you? My heart has been burning to ashes while standing here by your side, and you have pitilessly tortured me still further by telling me that you love Star Gladstone—that girl who has only crossed my path to mar my every prospect in life. I thought half an hour ago, when I stood beside you during that mock ceremony and spoke those sacred words, that if they could only have been real—if I could indeed have been made your lawful wife, it would have been like the happiness of heaven for me. If you could have but called me by that fond name only once—if you had looked tenderly into my eyes and owned me yours, I could have asked no greater bliss in life. But, heavens! when I break every barrier down, when I forget my womanhood and modesty and tell you how I idolize you, you coolly inform me that you love the girl I hate. Beware! you have made me an eternal enemy to you both, and I will ruin both your lives, as you have ruined mine, if I can.”
She would have dashed wildly by him after uttering those last fierce, revengeful words, but he placed himself directly in her path and would not let her pass.
He saw now that all his sympathy and kindly feeling had been worse than wasted. He had read her character aright from the first; she was totally selfish, and her love—if an unreasoning passion like hers could be called love—would have made any true man miserable, for her ambition would never be satisfied.
He did not wonder now that he had not had more faith in her, and his sympathy and sorrow for her were at once turned into contempt.
“Miss Richards,” he began, in a stern, cold voice, and looking down into her angry, blazing eyes with a glance which cowed her in spite of her passion, “what respect I may have entertained for you heretofore, what pity or compassion I may have experienced for your apparent suffering to-night, and the only emotion which ever made you appear really womanly or gentle in my eyes, has wholly vanished during those last vindictive words of yours. I had begun to hope that you had learned lessons of charity and kindness during the past year—that you had come to realize there was something more required in life than a continual seeking after pleasure and the gratification of pride and ambitious desires; but I perceive that I was mistaken, and I am sorry, for you will be the greatest sufferer. Your declaration of hatred, and your threat that you will ruin Miss Gladstone’s and my life, are but idle words; for our love is something that malice can never touch, and a month hence I shall be on my way to America to make her my wife.”
Josephine uttered a cry of mingled pain and anger at this, and made another effort to leave him, but he would not let her go even yet.
“I have not quite finished what I wish to say, Miss Richards,” he continued, “and we may as well come to a full understanding at once. I have been told of the change in Miss Gladstone’s fortunes. I have, indeed, learned much regarding her life while she was with you that has both pained and surprised me. I know, too, of some things which occurred this year, when you were both visitors at the same fashionable resort. You are, it appears, to remain a resident of England, and we may meet occasionally in society; but let me tell you I shall never allow any such indignity to be heaped upon the future Lady Carrol as that of which you were guilty this summer at Newport.”
He saw her start as he said this.
“What do you mean?” she demanded, haughtily.