"
"Dearest, let them be forgotten. Yes, forgiven too. But poor Mr. Knox
Van de Lear! They have stolen his savings and mortgaged his household
furniture, which he was confiding enough to have put in his wife's name.
That is also a part of the story related around the good pastor's
grave."
"Calvin has not escaped," exclaimed Andrew Zane. "As long as that
tigress accompanies him he has expiation to make. Voluptuous, jealous,
restless, and, like a snake in the tightness of her folds and her
noiseless approach, she will smother him with kisses and sell him to his
enemies."
"Do you know her so well?" asked Agnes placidly.
"Very well. She was corrupt from childhood, but only a few of us knew
it. She grew to be beautiful, and had the quickened intelligence which,
for a while, accompanies ruined women: the unnatural sharpening of the
duplicity, the firmer grasp on man as the animal, the study of the
proprieties of life, and apparent impatience with all misbehavior. Her
timid voice assisted her cunning as if with a natural gentleness, and
invited onward the man who expected in her ample charms a bolder spirit.
She betook herself to the church for penance, perhaps, but remained
there for a character. My wife, if I have suffered, it was, perhaps, in
part because for every sin is some punishment; that woman was _my_
temptress also!"
His face was pale as he spoke these words, but he did not drop his eyes.
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