"Do not say another word, Miss Hastings; I cannot listen. Just as criminals were fastened to the rack, bound to the wheel, tied to the stake, I am bound here--awaiting my revenge!" "Oh, Pauline, if you would but forego such strange speech! This longing for vengeance is in your heart like a deadly canker in a fair flower. It will end badly." The beautiful face with its defiant light was turned toward her. "Do not attempt to dissuade me," she said. "Your warning is useless, and I do not like to grieve you. I acquainted Lady Darrell with my determination before she married my uncle for his money. She persisted in doing it. Let her take the consequences--bear the penalty. If she had acted a true womanly part--if she had refused him, as she ought to have done--he would have had time for reflection, he would not have disinherited me in his anger, and Darrell Court would have descended to a Darrell, as it ought to have done." "If you could but forget the past, Pauline!" "I cannot--it is part of my life now. I saw two lives before me once--the one made noble, grand, and gracious by this inheritance, which I should have known so well how to hold; the other darkened by disappointment and shadowed by revenge. You know how some men wait for the fair fruition of a fair hope--for the dawn of success--for the sunshine of perfect prosperity; so do I wait for my revenge. We Darrells never do things by halves; we are not even moderate. My heart, my soul, my life--which might have been, I grant, filled with high impulses--are concentrated on revenge." Though the words she spoke were so terrible, so bitter, there was no mean, vindictive, or malign expression on that beautiful face; rather was it bright with a strange light. Mistaken though the idea might be, Pauline evidently deemed herself one chosen to administer justice. Miss Hastings looked at her. "But, Pauline," she said, gravely, "who made you Lady Darrell's judge?" "Myself," she replied. "Miss Hastings, you often speak of justice; let me ask, was this matter fair? My uncle was irritated against me because I would not marry a man I detested and loathed; in his anger he formed the project of marriage to punish me. He proposed to Elinor Rocheford, and, without any love for him, she agreed to marry him. I went to her, and warned her not to come between me and my rightful inheritance. I told her that if she did I would be revenged. She laughed at my threat, married my uncle, and so disinherited me. Now, was it fair that I should have nothing, she all--that I, a Darrell, should see the home of my race go to strangers? It is not just, and I mean to take justice into my hands." "But, Pauline," opposed Miss Hastings, "if Lady Darrell had not accepted Sir Oswald, some one else would."