Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/472

THE AMERICAN to make of any information you're so good as to give me."

Mrs. Bread seemed to hold her breath. "You want to publish them—you want to shame them?"

"I want to bring them down—down, down, down! I want to turn the tables on them—I want to mortify them as they mortified me. They took me up into a high place and made me stand there for all the world to see me, and then they stole behind me and pushed me into this bottomless pit where I lie howling and gnashing my teeth! I made a fool of myself before all their friends; but I shall make something worse of them."

This passionate profession, which Newman uttered with the greater zeal that it was the first time he had felt the relief words at once as hard and as careful as hammer-taps could give his spirit, kindled two small sparks in Mrs. Bread's fixed eyes. "I suppose you've a right to your anger, sir; but think of the dishonour you 'll draw down on the Countess."

"If the Countess is to be buried alive," he cried, "what's honour or dishonour to her ever again? The door of the living tomb is at this moment closing behind her."

"Yes, it's most awful," Mrs. Bread moaned.

"She has moved off, like her brother Valentin, to give me room to work. It's as if it were all done on purpose."

"Surely," said Mrs. Bread, who seemed impressed by the ingenuity of this reflection. She was silent some moments; then she added: "And would you bring my lady before the courts?" 442