What wonder that he,
ardent, refined, and genial, should lay his heart at your feet? And I
have nothing but my love to make him love me. I cannot take him from you.
Oh, be generous to the weak! Oh, give him back to me! What is one heart
more to you? You are so rich, and I am so poor, that without his love I
have nothing, and can do nothing but sit me down and cry till my heart
breaks. Give him back to me, beautiful, terrible woman! for, with all
your gifts, you cannot love him as his poor Mabel does; and I will love
you longer perhaps than men can love. I will kiss your feet, and Heaven
above will bless you; and I will bless you and pray for you to my dying
day. Ah! it is alive! I am frightened! I am frightened!" She ran to
Triplet and seized his arm. "No!" cried she, quivering close to him; "I'm
not frightened, for it was for me she-- Oh, Mrs. Woffington!" and, hiding
her face on Mr. Triplet's shoulder, she blushed, and wept, and trembled.
What was it had betrayed Mrs. Woffington? _A tear!_
During the whole of this interview (which had taken a turn so unlooked
for by the listener) she might have said with Beatrice, "What fire is in
mine ears?" and what self-reproach and chill misgiving in her heart too.
She had passed through a hundred emotions, as the young innocent wife
told her sad and simple story. But, anxious now above all things to
escape without being recognized--for she had long repented having
listened at all, or placed herself in her present position-- she fiercely
mastered her countenance; but, though she ruled her features, she could
not rule her heart.
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