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‘Oh, have some mercy on me!’ cried Emily. ‘Show me some compassion, or I shall die mad!’

‘It would be no great penance,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘for your crimes. Do you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you have laid waste?’

‘Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don’t think of it!’ cried Emily; and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown back, her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, and her hair streaming about her. ‘Has there ever been a single minute, waking or sleeping, when it hasn’t been before me, just as it used to be in the lost days when I turned my back upon it for ever and for ever! Oh, home, home! Oh dear, dear uncle, if you ever could have known the agony your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you never would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but would have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that I might have had some comfort! I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them were always fond of me!’ She dropped on her face, before the imperious figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her dress.

Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she must keep a strong constraint upon herself—I write what I sincerely believe—or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and character seemed forced into that expression.—-Would he never come?

‘The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!’ she said, when she had so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust herself to speak. ‘YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money would not pay for, and handsomely? YOUR home! You were a part of the trade of your home, and were bought and sold like any other vendible thing your people dealt in.’

‘Oh, not that!’ cried Emily. ‘Say anything of me; but don’t visit my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as honourable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you have no mercy for me.’

‘I speak,’ she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, and drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily’s touch, ‘I speak of HIS home—where I live. Here,’ she said, stretching out her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, ‘is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn’t have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach. This piece of pollution, picked up from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and then tossed back to her original place!’

‘No! no!’ cried Emily, clasping her hands together. ‘When he first came into my way—that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me being carried to my grave!—I had been brought up as virtuous as you or any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home and know him, you know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl might be. I don’t defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will know when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved him!’

Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that I had almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which had no aim, fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with rage and scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never could see such another.

‘YOU love him? You?’ she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath.

Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply.

‘And tell that to ME,’ she added, ‘with your shameful lips? Why don’t they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done, I would have this girl whipped to death.’

And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the rack itself, while that furious look lasted. She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for gods and men.

‘SHE love!’ she said. ‘THAT carrion! And he ever cared for her, she’d tell me. Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!’

Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained it up again, and however it might tear her within, she subdued it to herself.

‘I came here, you pure fountain of love,’ she said, ‘to see—as I began by telling you—what such a thing as you was like. I was curious. I am satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek that home of yours, with all speed, and hide your head among those excellent people who are expecting you, and whom your money will console. When it’s all gone, you can believe, and trust, and love again, you know! I thought you a broken toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished, and thrown away. But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness—which you look like, and is quite consistent with your story!—I have something more to say. Attend to it; for what I say I’ll do. Do you hear me, you fairy spirit? What I say, I mean to do!’

Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over her face like a spasm, and left her smiling.

‘Hide yourself,’ she pursued, ‘if not at home, somewhere. Let it be somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life—or, better still, in some obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you have found no way of helping it to be still! I have heard of such means sometimes. I believe they may be easily found.’

A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She stopped, and listened to it as if it were music.

‘I am of a strange nature, perhaps,’ Rosa Dartle went on; ‘but I can’t breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly. Therefore, I will have it cleared; I will have it purified of you. If you live here tomorrow, I’ll have your story and your character proclaimed on the common stair. There are decent women in the house, I am told; and it is a pity such a light as you should be among them, and concealed. If, leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town in any character but your true one (which you are welcome to bear, without molestation from me), the same service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favour of your hand, I am sanguine as to that.’