"Cruel? Yes; what else do you deserve? Had you never told me that falsehood—never deceived me I—I might; but it is too late—all too late. And yet how I love her, love her to madness, and she the—the wife of another!" and he groaned and clenched his hands together, until the nails seemed buried in the very flesh, in utter anguish at the thought.
"Don't talk of her so, Charles, you will break my heart. Have some pity."
"Pity! I have none. What had you for either her or me. I tell you I have no mercy, no pity, only scorn and—and—" he would have said hate, but somehow the word would not come to his lips, as he looked at the bent, bowed figure kneeling so humbly before him.
"Oh! don't go! don't go, Charles. Say one, only one kind word," cried Frances, imploringly, as he turned again to leave her.
"Don't ask me," he replied, "for I have none to give. Don't ask me, lest I say more than I have done. Pray God that he will change your revengeful, cruel heart. I pray that we may never meet again."
"Oh, my God, he's gone!" moaned Frances, as the door closed upon him, "and not one kind word, not one. Oh! I have not deserved it! indeed I haven't," and burying her face in the sofa cushion, she burst into a fresh passion of hopeless, despairing tears.
After a few moments she raised her head again and sobbed and moaned afresh, as she cried.
"He was cruel to the last, and all through her. Oh! I will hate her tenfold for this, and work her more misery if I can. I will never repent what I have done. Never! but will make her suffer more frightfully, if—if possible, than this!"
She tossed back her hair, and almost for the moment regained her former proud bearing; for, strange and unnatural as it may seem, this desperate resolve of making Amy, if she could, more wretched than she had already, soothed and calmed for a time the hopeless nature of her thoughts, and was the one hope that supported her through the long, terrible hours of the night that followed.