"Why do you come back again?" cried she, in accents soft as milk, yet
bitter as gall. "Why do you cross my threshold, you false witch, when
there is nothing more to blight and blast? Did you think I should not
know you, that you dared to come? I should know you among all the
fair-faced fiends in hell."
"Mercy, mercy, Mrs. Yorke!" cried Harry, feebly; and she fell upon her
knees, and made as though she would have clasped the other's garments
with her stretched-out arms.
"Don't touch me, lest I strike you," answered the old woman, fiercely,
"as, nineteen years ago, I would have struck you on your cruel lips, and
spoiled the beauty that was the ruin of my boy! May _you_ have sons to
perish through false wantons, and to pine in prison! May _you_ be
desolate, and without heart or hope, as I am! Go, devil, go, and rid me
of your hateful presence!"
"Hear me, hear me, Mrs. Yorke!" pleaded the other, with clasped hands.
"Strike me, spit upon me, if you will, but only hear me! Abject as I
look, wretched as I feel--as I knew I must needs look and feel--I have
longed for this hour to come, as my boy longs for his bridal morning!"
"May he wake the next to find his bride a corpse; or, better still, to
find her false, like you."
"I am not false; I never was; Heaven knows it!" cried Harry,
passionately.
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