Bassett's house stood near the highway, but the entrance to the
premises was private, and through a long white gate.
By this gate was a heap of stones, and Mary Wells got on that heap and
waited.
When she had been there about half an hour, Richard Bassett drove up in
a hired carriage, with his pale little wife beside him. At his own gate
his eye encountered Mary Wells, and he started. She stood above him,
with her arms folded grandly; her cheek, so swarthy and ruddy, was now
pale, and her black eyes glittered like basilisks at him and his bride.
The whole woman seemed lifted out of her low condition, and dignified
by wrong.
He had to sustain her look for a few seconds, while the gate was being
opened, and it seemed an age. He felt his first pang of remorse when he
saw that swarthy, ruddy cheek so pale. Then came admiration of her
beauty, and disgust at the woman for whom he had jilted her; and that
gave way to fear: the hater looked into those glittering eyes, and saw
he had roused a hate as unrelenting as his own.
CHAPTER XIII.
FOR the first few days Richard Bassett expected some annoyance from
Mary Wells; but none came, and he began to flatter himself she was too
fond of him to give him pain.
This impression was shaken about ten days after the little scene I have
described.
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