"I had to come here for a free breath away from that old man whose very presence stifles and smothers me. And yet--and yet, I am his wife! Oh, Heaven, what a terrible price I must pay for my revenge!" She paused, and a strange look came into her eyes. It was a look of terrible dread and despair, inexplicably blended with passionate triumph. "And yet," she began again, after a moment's silence, looking around at the evidences of wealth and taste so lavishly scattered about her, "what a glorious revenge it is! It was for this he scorned and deserted me! Yet I have stripped him of his heritage. I have stolen from him the empire he held so long. I have revenged myself tenfold for what I suffered at his hands. Ah! weak fool that I am, why regret the price of such a splendid triumph?" Her face grew hard and cold, a cruel smile curled her scarlet lips, her eyes flashed with scorn. Pride and passion spoke in every curve of her mobile, spirited face. The lace hangings at the entrance parted noiselessly, and a man stepped lightly across the threshold. Not a sound announced his presence, yet she looked up instantly, as if by some subtle inner sense she divined that he was there. "Ah!" she breathed, in a hissing tone of hate and scorn. A mocking smile curled the man's lip as he bowed before her. "Ah! _ma tante_," he said, in a cool tone of scorn, "permit me to offer my congratulations." Some emotion too great for utterance seemed to overpower her, so that she struggled vainly for speech a moment, while he stood silent, with folded arms, looking down at her from his haughty height with a look of veiled hatred in his dark-blue eyes. They were deadly foes, this man and woman, yet nature had formed them as if for the perfect complement of each other. He was tall, strong and fair, with the proud beauty and commanding air we fancy in the Grecian gods of old. She was _petite_, dark, brilliant as a rose, and passionate as the tropical blood of the south could make her. Breaking down the bars of her great emotion at last, she laughed aloud--a cool, insolent, incredulous laugh that made the hot blood bound faster through his veins, and a flush creep over his face. "You call me aunt," she said; "ha! ha!" "Yes, madam, you bear that relationship to me since your marriage with my uncle," he answered, with a formal bow. "You expect to find me a most loving relative, no doubt?" she said, with exasperating coolness. "I hope to do so, at least," he said, with calm frankness, "I cannot afford to quarrel with my uncle. I shall hope to keep on good terms with his wife." "Ah! you don't wish to quarrel with your bread and butter," she said in a tone of cool contempt. "Well, _mon ami_, what do you suppose I married your uncle for?" "The world says that you married him for his money," said the handsome young man, coolly.