man like me is not
forsaken on account of a woman; and he who loves me will love no other
after me. There, read his letter!"

She handed the duchess her husband's letter.

"And what do you want to do now?" asked the duchess, after she had read
it.

"I will have revenge, my lady! He says he no longer has a heart to
love; well, now, we will so manage, that he may no longer have a head to
think. Will you be my ally, my lady?"

"I will."

"And I also will be," said the Duchess of Richmond, who just then opened
the door and came out of the adjoining room.

Not a word of this entire conversation had escaped her, and she very
well understood that the question was not about some petty vengeance,
but her father's head. She knew that Miss Holland was not a woman that,
when irritated, pricked with a pin; but one that grasped the dagger to
strike her enemy a mortal blow.

"Yes, I too will be your ally," cried the Duchess of Richmond; "we have
all three been outraged by the same man. Let, then, our revenge be a
common one. The father has insulted you; the son, me. Well, then, I
will help you to strike the father, if you in return will assist me to
destroy the son."

"I will assist you," said Arabella, smiling; "for I also hate the
haughty Earl of Surrey, who prides himself on his virtue, as if it were
a golden fleece which God himself had stuck on his breast. I hate him;
for he never meets me but with proud disregard; and he alone is to blame
for his father's faithlessness."

"I was present when with tears he besought the duke, our father, to free
himself from your fetters, and give up this shameful and disgraceful
connection with you," said the young duchess.

Arabella answered nothing. But she pressed her hands firmly together,
and a slight pallor overspread her cheeks.

"And why are you angry with your brother?" asked the old duchess,
thoughtfully.

"Why am I angry with him, do you ask, my mother? I am not angry with
him; but I execrate him, and I have sworn to myself never to rest till
I have avenged myself. My happiness, my heart, and my future, lay in
his hands; and he has remorselessly trodden under his haughty feet
these--his sister's precious treasures. It lay with him to make me the
wife of the man I love; and he has not done it, though I lay at his feet
weeping and wringing my hands."

"But it was a great sacrifice that you demanded," said her mother. "He
had to give his hand to a woman he did not love,