V

chance of security lay, not so much in my own caution, and my perfect command of look and action under all emergencies, as in the self-distrust and timidity of her nature; in the helpless inferiority of position to which her husband’s want of affection, and her daughter’s want of respect, condemned her in her own house; and in the influence of repulsion⁠—at times, even of absolute terror⁠—which my presence had the power of communicating to her. Suspecting what I am assured she suspected⁠—incapable as she was of rendering her suspicions certainties⁠—knowing beforehand, as she must have known, that no words she could speak would gain the smallest respect or credit from her husband or her child⁠—that woman’s life, while I was at North Villa, must have been a life of the direst mental suffering to which any human being was ever condemned. > > As time passed, and Margaret grew older, her beauty both of face and form approached nearer to perfection than I had foreseen, closely as I watched her. But neither her mind nor her disposition kept pace with her beauty. I studied her closely, with the same patient, penetrating observation, which my experience of the world has made it a habit with me to direct on everyone with whom I am brought in contact⁠—I studied her, I say, intently; and found her worthy of nothing, not even of the slave-destiny which I had in store for her. > > She had neither heart nor mind, in the higher sense of those words. She had simply instincts⁠—most of the bad instincts of an animal; none of the good. The great motive power which really directed her, was Deceit.