"Want me out of the way, perhaps?"
"Yes!"
The woman rose to her full height, and in her haughty anger would have swept from the room, but on second thought she drew a chair, and sat down opposite him, leaning her arm on the table.
"Nelson," she said, in her clear, rich voice, which, spite of herself, shook with suppressed pa.s.sion, "you are angry because I have had so little time to give you of late."
He looked her steadily in the face.
"No, Ellen, I am not angry at any thing."
"Then why are you so stern with me?"
"Because I am myself again."
The woman was really frightened; the impolicy of her late conduct forced itself upon her; for a moment she sat biting her lips in silence.
"You had better go to your room," he said, quietly; "the marble floor is cold."
"Not half as cold as your heart," she answered, with a burst of tears.
"Ah, Nelson, how can you treat me so cruelly? Me, who--who----"
"Who love me so dearly," he said, with one of the most cutting sneers that ever disfigured a man"s countenance.
These were the very words she had been trying to utter, but they lodged in her throat. He had antic.i.p.ated the falsehood with a sneer. She arose haughtily. Tears rolled down her flushed cheeks. She was really a beautiful woman; but her loveliness had no effect on him then. In her reckless vanity she had wounded him almost beyond repair, and his bosom serpent crested itself fiercely.
"I did not expect this," she said, in pale anger. "You shall never have a chance to insult me again."
"I did not seek it now. It is not my wish that you should ever come here."
"Why, what great secret do you keep in this room?" she said, speaking at random, in her anger. "One would think you had a hidden treasure here."
The sudden pallor that spread over his face struck her dumb; what had she said to arouse this white rage? The words escaped her memory as they were uttered, but they had given him a blow on the heart. Nelson recovered himself promptly.
"Well," he said, with less of bitterness in his voice, "you have chosen to seek me without invitation and without motive, so far as I can understand. If you have any business, let me know it?"
"Cannot a woman visit her husband without special business?" retorted the wife.
"Her husband?" he repeated, in a low, sneering voice.
She burst into tears.
"Nelson, this is cruel."
"Cruel; I thought you did not understand the term!"
She could control her pa.s.sion no longer, but stamped angrily on the marble floor with her foot.
"Nelson Thrasher, this is too much, after persecuting me with your attentions, begging me upon your knees to become your wife. I am insulted in my own house, sneered at almost before my own servants, neglected, trampled on----"
"Be silent, madame! these complaints are false. It is I who have been outraged and insulted; set at naught under my own roof; left to solitude, when my heart ached for the company of my wife; and all because I brought to you a devotion more perfect than man ever gave to woman; because I loved you well enough to deserve the contempt which you rain upon me."
Mrs. Nelson began to cry and wring her hands at this, and, after the fashion of widows who marry a second time, sobbed out: "It was no more than she deserved. Oh, if her first husband had only lived--never in his whole life had he spoken a harsh word to her. Alas, what a fool she had been!"
Nelson heard her impatiently; the mention of Captain Mason did not soften his heart, but closed it even against her tears and the beauty that they brightened, as dews refresh a rose.
She paused in her grief, and looked at him from under her wet eyelashes.
The tears rendered her glance very tender and sorrowful. His countenance softened. She saw it; and, going round the table, leaned over his chair, fanning his cheek with her breath.
"Nelson, have you really ceased to love me?"
There was truth in the bottom of the man"s heart, and he could not answer "Yes;" so he was silent, and sat beneath her caresses with downcast eyes. At last he looked up. There was forgiveness in his face, but it was stern and pale.
"Ellen, I did love you--I bought you at a fearful price. How much I gave, how much I risked, you will never know. How miserable I have been, you can never guess. All I asked was a little love and some show of respect. You gave me neither. I could not win them with entreaties or buy them with gold. You never loved me. You never liked me, Ellen."
She moved closer to him. The dew upon her cheek cooled his anger. He could not hate her quite yet. The time might come; but it was sweet to put it off, even for a little while.
"But I love you now."
As this soft whisper fell upon his heart, the serpent that had lifted his crest so angrily settled down, and went to sleep stupidly, as if it never would uncoil again.
The woman bore her triumph with caution, and would not seem elated. She sank to his side on one knee, forcing him to support her head with his hand, which yielded to the guidance of her soft touch, as the stern heart had given way to her caressing speech.
"You have been very harsh with me," was her sweet reproach; "and all because I cannot be happy when you will not trust me."
"Trust you?"
"Yes; you keep secrets from me. You are jealous because other men admire me."
"No, Ellen; I am jealous because you have no value for my admiration, not because others think you beautiful."
"But you keep secrets from me."
"What secrets?" he faltered.
"Oh, a great many."
She dared not come to the point at once for his face was growing dark again.
She watched his face keenly--it lowered like a thunder cloud. That pretence of jealousy was only a decoy subject--she cared nothing for his early love, but was painfully intent on gaining his secret of the treasures. Without that knowledge she must be forever at his mercy--always going through scenes like the one which had just pa.s.sed, or sink back into comparative poverty by abandoning him altogether. The partial independence which he had bestowed only made her more eager for new concessions.
"Then you have other secrets. Where is all the great wealth you told me of. I never saw it. I have no proof that it exists."
She spoke very naturally, but he understood her drift, and knew, in the depths of his heart, that it was this secret which chained her in that loving position at his knee. Still, with his softened feelings, it was pleasant to have her there at any cost, so he played with the question as a good angler trifles with his fly on the surface of a lake.
"You have the best of all proof, Ellen--that of spending the money."
"Yes, I know; but what is that compared to the confidence of one"s husband?"