"Stand firm. Speak not. It is my deed, not yours. The hour I have looked for through long years of anguish is come at last. Fear nothing for me!"
The figure approached, still enveloped in a cloak, and stood exactly opposite to us. For a moment—the most intense I ever remember—not a word was uttered. At last, the stranger spoke.
"It is, then, as I expected. I have tracked you to your hiding-place, and I find you with your paramour."
It was the voice of the dwarf! The blood leaped in my veins, and, hardly conscious of what I was doing, or meant to do, I sprang from my seat. Astræa rose at the same moment, and interposed.
"If you have the least regard or respect for me," she said, "do not interfere. For my sake, control yourself."
"For your sake!" echoed the dwarf. "Do you glory in his shame, as well as your own?"
"Shame!" cried Astræa. "Take back the foul word, and begone. You have no authority, no rights here. The shame is yours, not mine—yours, unmanly, pitiful, and mean, who have taken advantage of a contract wrung from a girl to doom the life of a woman to misery."
"Have I no authority?" quoth the dwarf. "Listen to me—you must—you shall—if it kill you in your heroics. I am your husband—my authority is law. I can command you to my foot, and you must obey me. You think you are secure; but I will show you that you have committed an egregious mistake. Believe me," he added, in a tone of supercilious mockery, for which I could have inflicted summary chastisement—"believe me, you only deceive yourself, as you have tried to deceive me."
"In what have I tried to deceive you?" she demanded. "I have been so explicit with you, that none but the most contemptible of your sex would have persisted at such a sacrifice of pride and feeling. Pride? You have none. Where you proffered love—oh! such love!—you found aversion;—where you sought, sued, and threatened, you received nothing in return but loathing and scorn. And now, henceforth and forever, I break all bonds between us. Since you will not do it, I will—I have done it! Obey you? I owe you no obedience. Be wise; take my answer, and leave me."
"Not at your bidding, madam. I did not come here to visit you in your retirement, and be turned away so unceremoniously. It is not my intention to leave you. Where you are, there must I be too."