His fate was
decided. Twice I waylaid him in the streets, and showed him my pale face,
which was not unlike the face of the dead. And as he believed that I was
drowned, the sight of me filled him with the most abject terror. How I
enjoyed the poor wretch's cowardly horror!
"The night that he was to be married, I lay in wait for him at the place
where the brook crossed the highway. I had learned that he was to walk up
alone from the depot, to the house of his expectant bride, and there I
resolved to avenge my wrongs. I stepped before him as he came, laid my
cold hand on his arm, and bade him follow me. He obeyed, in the most
abject submission. He seemed to have no will of his own, but yielded
himself entirely to me. He shook like one with the ague, and his
footsteps faltered so that at times I had to drag him along. I took
him to the lonely graveyard, where sleep the Harrison dead, and--" She
covered her face with her hands and lapsed into silence.
"Well, Arabel, and then?" asked Castrani, fearfully absorbed in the
strange narrative, feeling, as he listened, that the fate of Archer
Trevlyn hung on the next words the wretched woman might speak.
"I dropped the hood from my face and confronted him. I had no pity. My
heart was like stone.
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