here she, the despised, the degraded, had power still; her wrath had
ruined the fortunes of her victim, blasted the repute, embittered and
desolated evermore the future,--now her contemptuous charity fed the
wretched lives that she spared in scorn. She had no small difficulty,
it is true, in persuading Susan to accept this sacrifice, and she did
so only by sustaining her sister's belief that the past could yet be
retrieved, that Mainwaring's energies could yet rebuild their fortunes,
and that as the annuity was at any time redeemable, the aid therefore
was only temporary. With this understanding, Susan, overwhelmed with
gratitude, weeping and broken-hearted, departed to join the choice of
her youth. As the men deputed by the auctioneer to arrange and ticket
the furniture for sale entered the desolate house, Lucretia then, with
the step of a conqueror, passed from the threshold.

"Ah!" she murmured, as she paused, and gazed on the walls, "ah, they
were happy when I first entered those doors,--happy in each other's
tranquil love; happier still when they deemed I had forgiven the wrong
and abjured the past! How honoured was then their home! How knew I then,
for the first time, what the home of love can be! And who had destroyed
for me, upon all the earth, a home like theirs? They on whom that home
smiled with its serene and taunting peace! I--I, the guest! I--I, the
abandoned, the betrayed,--what dark memories were on my soul, what a
hell boiled within my bosom! Well might those memories take each a voice
to accuse them; well, from that hell, might rise the Alecto! Their lives
were in my power, my fatal dowry at my command,--rapid death, or slow,
consuming torture; but to have seen each cheer the other to the grave,
lighting every downward step with the eyes of love,--vengeance so
urged would have fallen only on myself! Ha! deceiver, didst thou plume
thyself, forsooth, on spotless reputation? Didst thou stand, me by thy
side, amongst thy perjured household gods and talk of honour? Thy home,
it is reft from thee; thy reputation, it is a scoff; thine honour, it
is a ghost that shall haunt thee! Thy love, can it linger yet? Shall the
soft eyes of thy wife not burn into thy heart, and shame turn love into
loathing? Wrecks of my vengeance, minions of my bounty, I did well to
let ye live; I shake the dust from my feet on your threshold. Live on,
homeless, hopeless, and childless! The curse is fulfilled!"

From that hour Lucret