But of what avail had been that? This strange female, this
Moabitish woman, had gone to Prague, and had found a key,--and
everybody said that the thing was done! How she hated the strange
woman, and remembered all the evil things that had been said of the
intruder! She told herself over and over again that had it been
any one else than this half-foreigner, this German Jewess, this
intriguing unfeminine upstart, she could have borne it. Did not all
the world know that the woman for the last two years had been the
mistress of that old doting Duke who was now dead? Had one ever heard
who was her father or who was her mother? Had it not always been
declared of her that she was a pushing, dangerous, scheming creature?
And then she was old enough to be his mother, though by some Medean
tricks known to such women, she was able to postpone,--not the
ravages of age,--but the manifestation of them to the eyes of the
world. In all of which charges poor Lady Laura wronged her rival
foully;--in that matter of age especially, for, as it happened,
Madame Goesler was by some months the younger of the two.
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