"This is a woman's view," said Hollingsworth, growing deadly pale,--"a
woman's, whose whole sphere of action is in the heart, and who can
conceive of no higher nor wider one!"
"Be silent!" cried Zenobia imperiously. "You know neither man nor
woman! The utmost that can be said in your behalf--and because I would
not be wholly despicable in my own eyes, but would fain excuse my
wasted feelings, nor own it wholly a delusion, therefore I say it--is,
that a great and rich heart has been ruined in your breast. Leave me,
now. You have done with me, and I with you. Farewell!"
"Priscilla," said Hollingsworth, "come." Zenobia smiled; possibly I
did so too. Not often, in human life, has a gnawing sense of injury
found a sweeter morsel of revenge than was conveyed in the tone with
which Hollingsworth spoke those two words. It was the abased and
tremulous tone of a man whose faith in himself was shaken, and who
sought, at last, to lean on an affection. Yes; the strong man bowed
himself and rested on this poor Priscilla! Oh, could she have failed
him, what a triumph for the lookers-on!
And, at first, I half imagined that she was about to fail him. She
rose up, stood shivering like the birch leaves that trembled over her
head, and then slowly tottered, rather than walked, towards Zenobia.
Arriving at her feet, she sank down there, in the very same attitude
which she had assumed on their first meeting, in the kitchen of the old
farmhouse. Zenobia remembered it.
"Ah, Priscilla!" said she, shaking her head, "how much is changed since
then! You kneel to a dethroned princess. You, the victorious one!
But he is waiting for you. Say what you wish, and leave me."
"We are sisters!" gasped Priscilla.
I fancied that I understood the word and action. It meant the offering
of herself, and all she had, to be at Zenobia's disposal. But the
latter would not take it thus.
"True, we are sisters!" she replied; and, moved by the sweet word, she
stooped down and kissed Priscilla; but not lovingly, for a sense of
fatal harm received through her seemed to be lurking in Zenobia's
heart. "We had one father! You knew it from the first; I, but a
little while,--else some things that have chanced might have been
spared you. But I never wished you harm. You stood between me and an
end which I desired. I wanted a clear path. No matter what I meant.
It is over now. Do you forgive me?"