Her
sharp eyes noticed it, and both grew red and fiery as two
devouring flames.
"Ah! you, too, shrink from me, would you? You, too, recoil in
horror! Ingrate! And I have come to save your life!"
"Madame, I recoil not from you, but from that which is tempting
you to utter words like these. I have no reason to love him of
whom you speak - you, perhaps, have even less; but I would not
have his blood, shed in murder, on my head, for ten thousand
worlds! Pardon me, but you do not mean what you say."
"Do I not? That remains to be seen! I would not call it murder
plunging a knife into the heart of a demon incarnate like that,
and I would have done it long ago and he knows it, too, if I had
the chance!"
"What has he done to you to make you do bitter against him?"
"Bitter! Oh, that word is poor and pitiful to express what I
feel when his name is mentioned. Loathing and hatred come a
little nearer the mark, but even they are weak to express the
utter - the - " She stopped in a sort of white passion that
choked her very words.
"They told me he was your husband," insinuated Sir Norman,
unutterably repelled.
"Did they?" she said, with a cold sneer, "he is, too - at least
as far as church and state can make him; but I am no more his
wife at heart than I am Satan's.
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