d contemptuous
determination with which she answered him--"Why will you weary me with
proposals which I have a hundred times rejected, and will reject again,
as often as it shall please you to amuse yourself by making them. I
require no more of these detailed assurances that you design to be, as
you have ever been, my bitter enemy."

"Catherine, is it to be an enemy to worship you as I have done?"

"Yes! a remorseless enemy, and this selfish worship my sorest
persecution. What other name were fitting for you, who, in your jealous
hate, have struck blow after blow upon my miserable heart, in the
persons of those most dear to me? Did you not, by your machinations,
deprive my noble husband of the employment by which he lived, and then,
rolling in riches as you were, did you ever stretch one finger to save
him from the wasting poverty which brought him to the grave? Are you not
his murderer?" and she grew fearfully excited. "Did you not hide all
from me, till I discovered it long after I was your wretched wife, when,
had I known it, you never should have so much as touched this hand of
mine?"

"But, remember, remember; he had done me a deadly wrong--he stole you
from me. What injury I ever did him was like to this?"

"It might have been an injury," she said, with a bitter smile, "had he
stolen my love from you; but this you never had, Sir Michael
Randolph--not even before I knew him. I loved luxury and greatness, as I
do now, and I had agreed to marry the Lord of Randolph Abbey, as such,
and nothing more. Then I met your gentle cousin Lyle, and the sweet
power of affection overcame ambition. My first love was, if you will,
your fair estate; but he was my second, and my last, for ever!"

"Do you not fear to speak such words to me?" he said, his face growing
white with anger, "and to irritate me thus bitterly, when you know I
have no power to control the fierceness of my passions? Do you not dread
my vengeance?"

"No; for whilst you live you can never injure me; your own heart would
resist your efforts so to do; and besides, the bonds that unite us would
prevent it. You never can take from me the right to share your home, and
find my chief pleasure in its luxury; nor can you, by the oath which I
made you take as the condition of our marriage, in any way deprive my
child of the shelter of this roof."

"It is true, I cannot; though I would give my right hand to do it!"

"That may be," said the scornful voice, "but you