“And now,” he went on, “why do I keep you here? Why do I torture you daily? I answer—are you listening, my cherished one?—I answer that it is my little vengeance. Harken, Josephine. You and that handsome young Raynal were in love with each other when I first saw you. You were both poor. Raynal has got rich since, but he was then poor as charity. I, on the contrary, was wealthy, and your family wouldn’t let you marry Raynal, but were anxious that you should marry me, for they wanted to make a rich match for you. You liked me well enough then, for you only knew the best side of me, which the ladies say is charming; but you did not love me. I pressed my suit, however, and your family worried and drove you—poor young girl of fifteen, that you were—till, unable—for I will be strictly fair to you, Josephine—unable to resist longer, you yielded, and I got you.” “Yes, you got me with a lie,” she passionately cried. “Never would I have yielded, had you and they not lied me into believing Raynal had abandoned me and engaged himself to another.” “Oh,” returned Mr. Lafitte, with a leer, “you have found that out, have you? No matter. I got you, and you discovered your mistake in yielding as time passed on. Then, the year before I brought you here, when you were in much suffering—for I will be just to you, Josephine—you and Raynal had a little correspondence. Ha! you thought I did not know it! But I found it out. Your treacherous young Creole wench sold me your secret, and I took copies of every letter you wrote before I let her carry them to Raynal. I took copies also of his before they went to you. They are all eloquent, and I love to read them. And they put you both in my power, my lady!” He saw that the blow struck home. She sat mute and still as marble, but all expression had gone from her face; the fire had faded from her eyes; her arms, still clasped on her bosom, were relaxed; and her bosom had ceased to heave. The planter watched her with an infernal smile on his dark visage. “With those letters in my possession,” he continued, “you could not seek release even in Indiana. For writing them, you have to be tortured most exquisitely till you die, as before you wrote them, you had to be tortured for having loved Raynal. And yet, Josephine, I believe you and Raynal to be people of honor, and, though you loved, to have written those letters with innocent hearts. You were in loveless suffering, and you wanted the consolation a friend could give, and which Raynal gave. See how justly I state it! I will go further—I will admit that the letters are such as two friends might have written to each other. There is really nothing wrong in them. But they are full of passages which are too equivocal to be read in a court of law. There innocent words are made to seem guilty. And those letters, without much twisting, would convict you of conjugal infidelity, my beloved Josephine.”