She sat in a careless
dishabille, with one white arm partly bare. Her long golden locks
flowed loosely down her back and touched the floor, as she sat on
her chair and watched and waited for the coming footsteps of La
Corriveau. Her lips were compressed with a terrible resolution; her
eyes glanced red as they alternately reflected the glow of the fire
within them and of the fire without. Her hands were clasped
nervously together, with a grip like iron, and lay in her lap, while
her dainty foot marked the rhythm of the tragical thoughts that
swept like a song of doom through her soul.
The few compunctious feelings which struggled up into her mind were
instantly overborne by the passionate reflection that the lady of
Beaumanoir must die! "I must, or she must--one or other! We cannot
both live and marry this man!" exclaimed she, passionately. "Has it
come to this: which of us shall be the wife, which the mistress? By
God, I would kill him too, if I thought he hesitated in his choice;
but he shall soon have no choice but one! Her death be on her own
head and on Bigot's--not on mine!"
And the wretched girl strove to throw the guilt of the sin she
premeditated upon her victim, upon the Intendant, upon fate, and,
with a last subterfuge to hide the enormity of it from her own eyes,
upon La Corriveau, whom she would lead on to suggest the crime and
commit it!--a course which Angelique tried to believe would be more
venial than if it were suggested by herself! less heinous in her own
eyes, and less wicked in the sight of God.
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