Suddenly Selina started.
"Leave me, Edgardo! leave me! A mysterious something--a fatal
misgiving--a dark ambiguity--an equivocal mistrust oppresses me. I
would be alone!"
The young man arose, and cast a loving glance on the lady. "Then
we will be married on the seventeenth."
"The seventeenth," repeated Selina, with a mysterious shudder.
They embraced and parted. As the clatter of hoofs in the court-
yard died away, the Lady Selina sank into the chair she had just
quitted.
"The seventeenth," she repeated slowly, with the same fateful
shudder. "Ah!--what if he should know that I have another husband
living? Dare I reveal to him that I have two legitimate and three
natural children? Dare I repeat to him the history of my youth?
Dare I confess that at the age of seven I poisoned my sister, by
putting verdigris in her cream-tarts,--that I threw my cousin from
a swing at the age of twelve? That the lady's-maid who incurred
the displeasure of my girlhood now lies at the bottom of the horse-
pond? No! no! he is too pure,--too good,--too innocent, to hear
such improper conversation!" and her whole body writhed as she
rocked to and fro in a paroxysm of grief.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65