“But he--he? Can you hope that he will ever love you?”
“Yes, any day I may wish for it. And I shall wish it the day when he
returns.”
Was she speaking seriously? or was the whole scene only a bit of cruel
sport? That is what Henrietta was asking herself, as far as she was able
to control her thoughts; for she felt her head growing dizzy, and her
thoughts rushed wildly through her mind.
“You love Daniel!” she repeated once more, “and yet you were married the
very week after his departure!”
“Alas, yes!”
“And what was my father to you? A magnificent prey, which you did
not like to let escape,--an easy dupe. After all, you acknowledge it
yourself, it was his fortune you wanted. It was for his money’s
sake that you married him,--you, the young, marvellously-beautiful
woman,--the old man.”
A smile rose upon the lips of the countess, in which she appeared
herself in all the deep treachery of her secret calculations. She broke
in, laughing ironically--
“I? I had coveted the fortune of this dear count, my husband? You do not
think of it, madam? Have you so completely forgotten the zeal with which
you heard me, only the other day, try to turn him from this enterprise
in which he is about to embark all he possesses?”
Henrietta hardly knew whether she was awake or asleep. Was she not,
perhaps, under the influence of one of those hallucinations which fevers
produce?
“And you dare tell me all these things, me, Count Ville-Handry’s own
daughter, the daughter of your husband?”
“Why not?” asked the countess.