--"Yes," she said,
"slave and son of a slave! Since you wear the dress of my household, you
shall obey me as fully as the rest of them, otherwise,--whips, fetters,
--the scaffold, renegade,--the gallows, murderer! Dost thou dare to
reflect on the abyss of misery from which I raised thee, to share my
wealth and my affections? Dost thou not remember that the picture of
this pale, cold, unimpassioned girl was then so indifferent to thee,
that thou didst sacrifice it as a tribute due to the benevolence of her
who relieved thee, to the affection of her who, wretch as thou art,
condescended to love thee?"
"Yes, fell woman," answered Middlemas, "but was it I who encouraged the
young tyrant's outrageous passion for a portrait, or who formed the
abominable plan of placing the original within his power?"
"No--for to do so required brain and wit. But it was thine, flimsy
villain, to execute the device which a bolder genius planned; it was
thine to entice the woman to this foreign shore, under pretence of a
love, which, on thy part, cold-blooded miscreant, never had existed."
"Peace, screech-owl!" answered Middlemas, "nor drive me to such madness
as may lead me to forget thou art a woman."
"A woman, dastard! Is this thy pretext for sparing me?--what, then, art
thou, who tremblest at a woman's looks, a woman's words?--I am a woman,
renegade, but one who wears a dagger, and despises alike thy strength
and thy courage.
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