you are quite safe, I assure you, in your old place,
with the table between us;" and I pointed derisively to _fauteuil_ he
had occupied so gracefully a few moments before, and into which he now
slowly subsided.

"Contemptuous girl," he broke forth at last, "you may yet live to regret
this behavior; so far, nothing has been denied you; no expense has been
spared for your comfort; in a tribunal of justice you could say this, no
more: 'My guardian, thinking me mad from his experiences of my conduct
and health, and regaining accidental possession of me at a time when,
under a feigned name, I was thought to be drowned, deemed it best,
before revealing my existence to the world, to try and restore me to
sanity by private measures, rather than bring upon my malady the eyes
of a mocking world. In doing this, he used all delicacy, all devotion,
surrounding me with comforts, and many luxuries, and even humoring my
insane whim to have the companionship of a year-old child found with me
on the raft under circumstances suspicious--if no more--'"

"Wretch!" I gasped, "dare only asperse me in thought, and"--the menace
hung suspended on my tongue. What power had I to execute it, even if
uttered?

"As to my name, I feigned none. It was my mother's, is my own, and from
her I inherited, or, from the race of which she sprang, the power to
remember and avenge my wrongs; to hate, and curse--and blast, perhaps,
as well--such as you and yours, granted to his chosen children through
the power of Almighty God!" And again I rose and confronted him; then
fiercely pointed down upon his ignoble head, now bowed involuntarily,
either from policy or nervous terror, I never knew, a finger quivering
and keen with scorn and rage, an index of the mind that directed it.

"I wonder you are not afraid to behave to me in this manner," he said,
at length, lifting his head with a spasmodic jerk, and raising to mine
his mottled, angry eyes, now cold and hard as pebbles, "seeing that you
are, so to speak, in the hollow of my hand;" and, suiting the action to
the word, he extended his long, spongy, right hand, and closed it
crushingly, as though it contained a worm, while he smiled and
sneered--oh, such a sneer! it seemed to fill the room.

"True, true--I am very helpless," I said, sitting down with a sudden
revulsion of feeling, and, clasping my hands above my eyes, I wept
aloud, adding, a moment later, as I indignantly wiped my tears: "Yes, if
the worst bet