Paulines Passion and Punishment | Page 3

wholly trust. While my own
peace was undisturbed, I learned to read the language of your eyes,
Manuel, to find the boy grown into the man, the friend warmed into a
lover. Your youth had kept me blind too long. Your society had grown
dear to me, and I loved you like a sister for your unvarying kindness to
the solitary woman who earned her bread and found it bitter. I told you
my secret to prevent the utterance of your own. You remember the
promise you made me then, keep it still, and bury the knowledge of my
lost happiness deep in your pitying heart, as I shall in my proud one.
Now the storm is over, and I am ready for my work again, but it must
be a new task in a new scene. I hate this house, this room, the faces I
must meet, the duties I must perform, for the memory of that traitor
haunts them all. I see a future full of interest, a stage whereon I could
play a stirring part. I long for it intensely, yet cannot make it mine
alone. Manuel, do you love me still?"
Bending suddenly, she brushed back the dark hair that streaked his
forehead and searched the face that in an instant answered her. Like a
swift rising light, the eloquent blood rushed over swarthy cheek and
brow, the slumberous softness of the eyes kindled with a flash, and the
lips, sensitive as any woman's, trembled yet broke into a rapturous
smile as he cried, with fervent brevity, "I would die for you!"

A look of triumph swept across her face, for with this boy, as
chivalrous as ardent, she knew that words were not mere breath. Still,
with her stern purpose uppermost, she changed the bitter smile into one
half-timid, half-tender, as she bent still nearer, "Manuel, in a week I
leave the island. Shall I go alone?"
"No, Pauline."
He understood her now. She saw it in the sudden paleness that fell on
him, heard it in the rapid beating of his heart, felt it in the strong grasp
that fastened on her hand, and knew that the first step was won. A
regretful pang smote her, but the dark mood which had taken
possession of her stifled the generous warnings of her better self and
drove her on.
"Listen, Manuel. A strange spirit rules me tonight, but I will have no
reserves from you, all shall be told; then, if you will come, be it so; if
not, I shall go my way as solitary as I came. If you think that this loss
has broken my heart, undeceive yourself, for such as I live years in an
hour and show no sign. I have shed no tears, uttered no cry, asked no
comfort; yet, since I read that letter, I have suffered more than many
suffer in a lifetime. I am not one to lament long over any hopeless
sorrow. A single paroxysm, sharp and short, and it is over. Contempt
has killed my love, I have buried it, and no power can make it live
again, except as a pale ghost that will not rest till Gilbert shall pass
through an hour as bitter as the last."
"Is that the task you give yourself, Pauline?"
The savage element that lurks in southern blood leaped up in the boy's
heart as he listened, glittered in his eye, and involuntarily found
expression in the nervous grip of the hands that folded a fairer one
between them. Alas for Pauline that she had roused the sleeping devil,
and was glad to see it!
"Yes, it is weak, wicked, and unwomanly; yet I persist as relentlessly as
any Indian on a war trail. See me as I am, not the gay girl you have
known, but a revengeful woman with but one tender spot now left in

her heart, the place you fill. I have been wronged, and I long to right
myself at once. Time is too slow; I cannot wait, for that man must be
taught that two can play at the game of hearts, taught soon and sharply.
I can do this, can wound as I have been wounded, can sting him with
contempt, and prove that I too can forget."
"Go on, Pauline. Show me how I am to help you."
"Manuel, I want fortune, rank, splendor, and power; you can give me
all these, and a faithful friend beside. I desire to show Gilbert the
creature he deserted no longer poor, unknown, unloved, but lifted
higher than himself, cherished, honored, applauded, her life one of
royal pleasure, herself a happy queen. Beauty, grace, and talent you tell
me I possess; wealth gives them luster, rank exalts them, power makes
them irresistible. Place these