od! My God!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

OH, I DEFY THEE, HELL, TO SHOW
ON BEDS OF FIRE THAT BURN BELOW,
A DEEPER WOE.--_E. A. Poe_.

Philip pushes a chair forward as if to signify there is no need to
guard the window.

The action excites Eleanor to passion.

"It is cowardly to kill," she cries through her clenched teeth.

"And if I did, what should I get in return for all he has stolen from
me? Could he give me back your heart? Could he blot out the past with
his blood? Should I regain the pure thing I lost, the wife I
treasured, the woman I adored? Think how he shattered my life and
wrecked my happiness, when he enticed you with the golden apple, that
rots and decays, turning to wormwood between the lips! You were
allured by the seductive cajolery, the damnable influence of a
scoundrel."

Eleanor's breast heaves, she staggers forward in a frenzy.

"Stop! What you say is false. I was not 'enticed.' I went because I
loved him body and soul; because existence without him was
empty--impossible. If I had stayed with you, loving him, I should not
have been true to myself; I should have played the traitor in my own
home; the curse would have been on you and on your children. If such a
thing were possible, here in this new land, my passion developed,
increased, tenfold. The night and day, the light, the darkness, they
hold nothing for me but this rapturous love, all that is precious,
tender, sweet. I have fed on in this paradise till _you_ came, like an
image of death, to bring back all that is odious, hateful."

"Yes," he replies slowly, "I can believe you were happy, clinging to
the prize you held so dear. Your words have not surprised me, I have
listened to them so often in fancy, picturing this scene, when you and
I alone should stand together and bare our souls. I expected to hear
your short-lived rapture hurled at me as a shield, a fortification! I
am ready to judge it, to weigh it if you will, in the scales of right
and wrong. Will you not continue?"

His words wither Eleanor's defence; she shrinks back into herself.

"Surely you have something more to say," with an ironical laugh, that
re-echoes discordantly round the room.

She shakes her head mournfully, and drops her hands to her sides.

"Perhaps," he continues, "I was to blame. I was not in harmony with
you; I failed to please."

"Oh! Philip!"

The words are a protest, wrung from the bottom of her soul.

"Or I did n