I saw you; that you were innocent, till I polluted you! You will come with those tearful eyes, those cheeks pale and ghastly, those hands lifted in supplication, as when you sought from me that mercy which I gave not! Then will my perdition be certain! Then will come your mother’s ghost, and hurl me down into the dwellings of fiends, and flames, and Furies, and everlasting torments! And ’tis you, who will accuse me! ’Tis you, who will cause my eternal anguish! You, wretched girl! You! You!”

As he thundered out these words, he violently grasped Antonia’s arm, and spurned the earth with delirious fury.

Supposing his brain to be turned, Antonia sank in terror upon her knees: she lifted up her hands, and her voice almost died away, ere she could give it utterance.

“Spare me! Spare me!” she murmured with difficulty.