She had asked for
bread--he had given her a stone. She had lavished her love at his
feet--he had coolly stepped aside. She had lowered her pride,
humiliated herself, all in vain.
"No woman," she said to herself, "would ever pardon such a slight or
forgive such a wrong."
At first she wept as though her heart would break--tears fell like rain
from her eyes, tears that seemed to burn as they fell; then after a time
pride rose and gained the ascendancy. She, the courted, beautiful woman,
to be so humiliated, so slighted! She, for whose smile the noblest in
the land asked in vain, to have her almost offered love so coldly
refused! She, the very queen of love and beauty, to be so spurned!
When the passion of grief had subsided, when the hot angry glow of
wounded pride died away, she raised her face to the night-skies.
"I swear," she said, "that I will be revenged--that I will take such
vengeance on him as will bring his pride down far lower than he has
brought mine. I will never forgive him. I have loved him with a devotion
passing the love of woman. I will hate more than I have loved him. I
would have given my life to make him happy.
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