A Terrible Temptation | Page 7

"Circumstances! what circumstances?"
"Oh, you know. You are in his confidence, I presume?"--this rather
satirically. So the lady answered, defiantly:
"Yes, I am; he knows I can hold my tongue, so he tells me things he
tells nobody else."
"Then, if you are in his confidence, you know he is about to be
married."
"Married! Sir Charles married!"
"In three weeks."
"It's a lie! You get out of my house this moment!"
Mr. Bassett colored at this insult. He rose from his seat with some little
dignity, made her a low bow, and retired. But her blood was up: she
made a wonderful rush, sweeping down a chair with her dress as she
went, and caught him at the door, clutched him by the shoulder and half
dragged him back, and made him sit down again, while she stood
opposite him, with the knuckles of one hand resting on the table.
"Now," said she, panting, "you look me in the face and say that again."
"Excuse me; you punish me too severely for telling the truth."
"Well, I beg your pardon--there. Now tell me--this instant. Can't you
speak, man?" And her knuckles drummed the table.
"He is to be married in three weeks."
"Oh! Who to?"
"A young lady I love."
"Her name?"

"Miss Arabella Bruce."
"Where does she live?"
"Portman Square."
"I'll stop that marriage."
"How?" asked Richard, eagerly.
"I don't know; that I'll think over. But he shall not marry her--never!"
Bassett sat and looked up with almost as much awe as complacency at
the fury he had evoked; for this woman was really at times a poetic
impersonation of that fiery passion she was so apt to indulge. She stood
before him, her cheek pale, her eyes glittering and roving savagely, and
her nostrils literally expanding, while her tall body quivered with wrath,
and her clinched knuckles pattered on the table.
"He shall not marry her. I'll kill him first!"
CHAPTER III
.
RICHARD BASSETT eagerly offered his services to break off the
obnoxious match. But Miss Somerset was beginning to be mortified at
having shown so much passion before a stranger.
"What have you to do with it?" said she, sharply.
"Everything. I love Miss Bruce."
"Oh, yes; I forgot that. Anything else? There is, now. I see it in your
eye. What is it?"
"Sir Charles's estates are mine by right, and they will return to my line
if he does not marry and have issue."
"Oh, I see. That is so like a man. It's always love, and something more
important, with you. Well, give me your address. I'll write if I want
you."
"Highly flattered," said Bassett, ironically-wrote his address and left
her.
Miss Somerset then sat down and wrote:

"DEAR SIR CHARLES--please call here, I want to speak to you.
yours respecfuly,
"RHODA SOMERSET."

Sir Charles obeyed this missive, and the lady received him with a
gracious and smiling manner, all put on and catlike. She talked with
him of indifferent things for more than an hour, still watching to see if
he would tell her of his own accord.
When she was quite sure he would not, she said,
"Do you know there's a ridiculous report about that you are going to be
married?"
"Indeed!"
"They even tell her name--Miss Bruce. Do you know the girl?"
"Yes."
"Is she pretty?"
"Very."
"Modest?"
"As an angel."
"And are you going to marry her?"
"Yes."
"Then you are a villain."
"The deuce I am!"
"You are, to abandon a woman who has sacrificed all for you."
Sir Charles looked puzzled, and then smiled; but was too polite to give
his thoughts vent. Nor was it necessary; Miss Somerset, whose brave
eyes never left the person she was speaking to, fired up at the smile
alone, and she burst into a torrent of remonstrance, not to say
vituperation. Sir Charles endeavored once or twice to stop it, but it was
not to be stopped; so at last he quietly took up his hat, to go.
He was arrested at the door by a rustle and a fall. He turned round, and
there was Miss Somerset lying on her back, grinding her white teeth
and clutching the air.
He ran to the bell and rang it violently, then knelt down and did his best
to keep her from hurting herself; but, as generally happens in these
cases, his interference made her more violent. He had hard work to
keep her from battering her head against the floor, and her arms worked
like windmills.
Hearing the bell tugged so violently, a pretty page ran headlong into the
room--saw--and; without an instant's diminution of speed, described a
curve, and ran headlong out, screaming "Polly! Polly!"
The next moment the housekeeper, an elderly woman, trotted in at the

door, saw