God knows; with
the heart-sick weariness and the fierce loathing that possessed me, I
don't know myself.
But, mind you, Eleanor, I schemed well. I had everything seemingly that
humanity craved for, but I suffered, and by all the gods, I swore that
he should suffer too. Blanche turned against him and married his
brother. An unfortunate chain of circumstances drove him from his
father's home branded as a forger. Strange, wasn't it? But money is a
strong weapon, and its long arm reaches over leagues and leagues of land
and water.
One day he found me in a distant city, and begged for my love again, and
for mercy and pity. Blanche was only a mistake, he said, and he loved me
alone, and so on. I remembered all his thrilling tones and tender
glances, but they might have moved granite now sooner than me. He knelt
at my feet and pleaded like a criminal suing for life. I laughed at him
and sneered at his misery, and told him what he had done for my
happiness, and what I in turn had done for his.
Eleanor, to my dying day, I shall never forget his face as he rose from
his knees, and with one awful, indescribable look of hate, anguish and
scorn, walked from the room. As he neared the door, all the old love
rose in me like a flood, drowning the sorrows of past years, and
overwhelming me in a deluge of pity.
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