Beulah - Page 184/348

"Beulah, if he loves you still, you will not reject him?" cried

Cornelia eagerly.

"He does not love me."

"Why will you evade me? Suppose that he does?"

"Then I tell you solemnly, not all Christendom could induce me to

marry him!"

"But to save him, Beulah! to save him!" replied Cornelia, clasping

her hands entreatingly.

"If a man's innate self-respect will not save him from habitual,

disgusting intoxication, all the female influence in the universe

would not avail. Man's will, like woman's, is stronger than his

affection, and, once subjugated by vice, all external influences

will be futile. If Eugene once sinks so low, neither you, nor I, nor

his wife--had he one--could reclaim him."

"He has deceived me! Fool that I was not to probe the mask!"

Cornelia started up and paced the floor with uncontrollable

agitation.

"Take care how you accuse him rashly! I am not prepared to believe

that he could act dishonorably toward anyone. I will not believe

it." "Oh, you, too, will get your eyes open in due time! Ha! it is

all as clear as daylight! And I, with my boasted penetration!--it

maddens me!" Her eyes glittered like polished steel.

"Explain yourself; Eugene is above suspicion!" cried Beulah, with

pale, fluttering lips.

"Explain myself! Then understand that my honorable brother professed

to love you, and pretended that he expected to marry you, simply and

solely to blind me, in order to conceal the truth. I taxed him with

a preference for Antoinette Dupres, which I fancied his manner

evinced. He denied it most earnestly, protesting that he felt bound

to you. Now do you understand?" Her lips were white, and writhed

with scorn.

"Still you may misjudge him," returned Beulah haughtily.

"No, no! My mother has seen it all along. But, fool that I was, I

believed his words! Now, Beulah, if he marries Antoinette, you will

be amply revenged, or my name is not Cornelia Graham!" She laughed

bitterly, and, dropping some medicine from a vial, swallowed the

potion and resumed her walk up and down the floor.

"Revenged! What is it to me, that he should marry your cousin? If he

loves her, it is no business of mine, and certainly you have no

right to object. You are miserably deceived if you imagine that his

marriage would cause me an instant's regret. Think you I could love

a man whom I knew to be my inferior? Indeed, you know little of my

nature." She spoke with curling lips and a proud smile.