Sometimes that seed ripens quickly,--sometimes it takes
years to grow,--but it is always there. And it generally takes root
in a mere, slight circumstance, so very commonplace and casual as to
entirely escape the notice of the criminal, till the network of
destiny is woven so closely about him that he can no longer avoid
it,--and then he is shown from what a trifling cause the whole
result has sprung. Varillo's present state of mind was one of
absolute torture, for he felt that whoever found the sheath of his
dagger would at once recognise it and declare the owner. If Angela
had only been wounded,--if SHE had found it--she would never have
given up the name of its possessor,--the miserable man knew her
straight, pure soul intimately enough for that!
"If she heard, she would shield me and defend me at the cost of her
own life!" he said--"She was always like that! SHE would never
listen to anything that was said against me,--and if she lived, she
would love me still, and never say that I had tried to kill her!"
and he actually smiled at the thought. "How strangely some women are
constituted!--especially women like Angela, who set up an exalted
standard of life, and accommodate their daily conduct to it! They
are sublime fools!--and so useful to men! We can do anything we like
with them.
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