"Silence, you shameless creature! silence, or I will call my servants to rid me of you!""You will not call them; for I have come to be reconciled with you, and to offer you peace.""Peace with you!" sneered the duchess--"peace with that shameless woman who stole from me my husband, the father of my children?--who loaded me with the disgrace of standing before the whole world as a repudiated and despised wife, and of suffering myself to be compared with you, that the world might decide which of us two was worthier of his love? Peace with you, Miss Holland?--with the impudent strumpet who squanders my husband's means in lavish luxury, and, with scoffing boldness, robs my children of their lawful property?""It is true, the duke is very generous," said Miss Holland, composedly. "He loaded me with diamonds and gold.""And meanwhile I was doomed almost to suffer want," said the duchess, grinding her teeth.
"Want of love, it may be, my lady, but not want of money; for you are very magnificently fitted up; and every one knows that the Duchess of Norfolk is rich enough to be able to spare the trifles that her husband laid at my feet. By Heaven! my lady, I would not have deemed it worth the trouble to stoop for them, if I had not seen among these trifles his heart. The heart of a man is well worth a woman's stooping for! You have neglected that, my lady, and therefore you lost your husband's heart. I picked it up. That is all. Why will you make a crime of that?""That is enough!" cried the duchess. "It does not become me to dispute with you; I desire only to know what gave you the courage to come to me?""My lady, do you hate me only? Or do you also hate the duke your husband?""She asks me whether I hate him!" cried the duchess, with a wild, scornful laugh. "Yes, Miss Holland, yes! I hate him as ardently as Idespise you. I hate him so much that I would give my whole estate--ay, years of my life--if I could punish him for the disgrace he has put upon me.""Then, my lady, we shall soon understand each other; for I too hate him," said Miss Holland, quietly seating herself on the velvet divan, and smiling as she observed the speechless astonishment of the duchess.
"Yes, my lady, I hate him; and without doubt still more ardently, still more intensely than you yourself; for I am young and fiery;you are old, and have always managed to preserve a cool heart."The duchess was convulsed with rage; but silently, and with an effort, she gulped down the drop of wormwood which her wicked rival mingled in the cup of joy which she presented to her.
"You do hate him, Miss Holland?" asked she, joyfully.
"I hate him, and I have come to league myself with you against him.
He is a traitor, a perfidious wretch, a perjurer. I will take vengeance for my disgrace!""Ah, has he then deserted you also?""He has deserted me also."
"Well, then, God be praised!" cried the duchess, and her face beamed with joy. "God is great and just; and He has punished you with the same weapons with which you sinned! For your sake, he deserted me;and for the sake of another woman, he forsakes you.""Not so, my lady!" said Miss Holland, proudly. "A woman like me is not forsaken on account of a woman; and he who loves me will love no other after me. There, read his letter!"She handed the duchess her husband's letter.
"And what do you want to do now?" asked the duchess, after she had read it.
"I will have revenge, my lady! He says he no longer has a heart to love; well, now, we will so manage, that he may no longer have a head to think. Will you be my ally, my lady?
I will."
"And I also will be," said the Duchess of Richmond, who just then opened the door and came out of the adjoining room.
Not a word of this entire conversation had escaped her, and she very well understood that the question was not about some petty vengeance, but her father's head. She knew that Miss Holland was not a woman that, when irritated, pricked with a pin; but one that grasped the dagger to strike her enemy a mortal blow.
