heart; she must have been less than woman not to have read his very
soul, so bared to her scrutiny.

It was the first time that she had ever deceived her mother, because it
was the first time that she had loved. Yes, loved, for though she would
as soon have sacrificed her life as to have acknowledged it, yet she did
love him, and the poor untutored Quadroon girl read the fact that the
mother could not, with all her cultivation and knowledge of the world,
detect. But jealousy is an apt teacher, and the spirit of Maud Leonardo
was now thoroughly aroused; she sighed for revenge, and puzzled her
brain how she might gain the longed-for end.

Captain Ratlin had eyes for only one object, and that was the young and
beautiful English girl. He never gave a thought to Maud; he had never
done so for one moment. As a friend of her father, or rather as a dealer
intimately connected in a business point of view with him, he had given
a present to his daughter, and had endeavored to make himself agreeable
to her at all times, but never for one moment with a serious thought of
any degree of intimacy, save of the most public and ordinary character.
Probably Maud herself would have never thought seriously about the
matter had she not felt how much the English girl surpassed her in
beauty, in accomplishment, and in all that might attract the interest of
one like Captain Ratlin.

Jealousy is a subtle poison, and the Quadroon was feeding upon it
greedily, while its baleful effect was daily becoming more and more
manifest in her behaviour.