Mrs. Orme tossed back her hair which had been unbound, and as the letters were placed in her hand, she seemed almost to forget them, so abstracted was the expression with which her eyes rested on the dancing waves of the Bay of Naples.  The noise of the door closing behind Mrs. Waul seemed to arouse her, and glancing at the letters she opened one from Mr. Palma.

The long and harrowing vigil which had lasted from the moment of bidding General Laurance good-night, on the previous evening, had left its weary traces in the beautiful face; but rigid resolution had also set its stem seal on the compressed mouth, and the eyes were relentless as those of Irene, waiting for the awful consummation in the Porphyry chamber at Byzantium.

The spirit of revenge had effectually banished all the purer, holier emotions of her nature; and the hope of an overwhelming Nemesis beckoned her to a fearful sacrifice of womanly sensibility, but just now nothing seemed too sacred to be immolated upon the altar of her implacable Hate.  To stab the hearts of those who had wronged her, she gladly subjected her own to the fiery ordeal of a merely nominal marriage with her husband’s father, resolving that her triumph should be complete.  Originally gentle, loving, yielding in nature, injustice and adversity had gradually petrified her character; yet beneath the rigid exterior flowed a lava tide, that now and then overflowed its stony barriers, and threatened irremediable ruin.

Fully resolved upon the revolting scheme which promised punishment to the family of Laurance, and

“Self-girded with torn strips of hope,”

she opened the New York letter.

The first few lines riveted her attention.  She sat erect, leaned forward, with eyes wide and strained, and gradually rose to her feet, clutching the letter, until her fingers grew purple.  As she hurried on, breathing like one whose everlasting destiny is being laid in the balance, a marvellous change overspread her countenance.  The blood glowed in lip and cheek, the wild sparkle sank, extinguished in the tears that filled her eyes, the hardness melted away from the resolute features, and at last a cry like that of some doomed spirit suddenly snatched from the horrors of perdition and set for ever at rest upon meads of Asphodel and Amaranth, rolled through the room.

After so many years of reckless hopelessness the transition was overpowering, and the miserable wife and mother rescued upon the extreme verge of utter lifelong ruin, fell forward upon her knees, sobbing and laughing alternately.

From the hour when she learned of her husband’s second marriage she had ceased to pray, abandoning herself completely to the cynicism and vindictiveness that overflowed her soul like a wave of Phlegethon; but now the fountain of gratitude was unsealed, and she poured out a vehement, passionate, thanksgiving to God.  Alternately praying, weeping, smiling, she knelt there, now and then re-reading portions of the letters, to assure herself that it was not a mere blessed dream, and at length when the strain relaxed, she dropped her head on a chair, and like a spent feeble child, cried heartily, unrestrainedly.