Lydia was in that state of exasperation in which the vilest weapons seem the best, and she included innocent Alba in her hatred for Maitland, on account of the portrait, a turn of sentiment which will show that it was envy by which that soul was poisoned above all.

Ah, what bitter delight the simultaneous success of that double infamy had procured for her! What savage joy, mingled with bitterness and ecstacy, had been hers the day before, on witnessing the nervousness of poor Alba and the suppressed fury of Boleslas! In her mind she had seen Maitland provoked by the rival whom she knew to be as adroit with the sword as with the pistol.

She would not have been the great-grandchild of a slave of Louisiana, if she had not combined with the natural energy of her hatreds a considerable amount of superstition.

A fortune-teller had once foretold, from the lines in her palm, that she would cause the violent death of some person.

"It will be he," she had thought, glancing at her husband with a horrible tremor of hope....