CHAPTER IV.
DRIVEN TO THE WALL.
Her eyes rested upon his face with a wild stare of terror, which grew deeper and more intense as he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him.
Tall, dark, saturnine, he was not a pleasant person to look at as he came to a halt upon the rug before the fireless grate and stood staring into her frightened face with eyes full of cold scrutiny.
For years she had been accustomed to see this man at long intervals, when he would suddenly and unexpectedly intrude upon her mother with some mysterious errand. There would be a private interview, and then he would disappear, leaving behind him a gloomy shadow—her mother’s face sad and sorrowful, her manner constrained, and the evidence of intense mental suffering.
As he stood before the girl now, she mentally decided that he was destined to be the evil genius of her life. And she was right.
“Well, Miss Violet Arleigh,” he began at last, breaking the silence which rested upon the room, “you have read your mother’s letter, I see. What do you think of its contents—the communication made therein?”
Silence! The girl’s dark eyes blazed with wordless indignation.
“What do I think, Mr. Gilbert Warrington?” she made answer, her voice trembling with scorn and contempt. “I think what I have always thought—that you are the greatest villain unhung!”
He winced perceptibly, and a faint tinge of color suffused his sallow cheek for a moment, then receded, leaving his face pale and resolute as before.
“Miss Arleigh is disposed to be complimentary,” he sneered, a baleful light kindling in his deep-set eyes. “You would do well to choose your words.”
“What is your business here?” she demanded, abruptly, after a brief pause, during which she studied the face of the man before her, with utter scorn in her eyes. “What has brought you here so unexpectedly? And answer me this, Gilbert Warrington: how did you know the contents of the letter which I have just read?”
He starts, and his lips close down upon a stifled imprecation. He has made a false move; let slip something which he should have guarded with his very life. His eyes seek the floor for a moment, then are once more uplifted.
“It is no concern of yours how I became acquainted with the contents of that letter,” he said, slowly. “Let it suffice that I do know. And I ask you, Miss Violet Arleigh, what are you going to do?”
She smoothed out the crumpled sheet of paper in her hand, and glanced over its contents once more.
“My mother states that you have a claim upon her—you!”—the girl’s sweet voice rang out in clear, scornful tones—“and she directs me to carry out your instructions. Mr. Gilbert Warrington, I do not believe that this was really my mother’s wish. She has been influenced, overpowered, coerced in this matter, or”—the great dark eyes transfix the glittering orbs of the man as she goes on slowly—“or the letter is a forgery, and Rosamond Arleigh never wrote a word of it. You know best!”
With an angry cry like the stifled howl of a wild beast, Gilbert Warrington sprung forward and grasped the girl’s arm in a fierce grip. His face was absolutely colorless, his eyes blazed.
“You devil!” he hissed, bending his head until his eyes seemed to burn into her very soul, “you shall obey me, do just as I direct, or you will live to regret it. I have come here at this hour—this sad hour—when the discovery of your mother’s death has just been made, simply and solely to confer with you before the lawyers get hold of the business here, and the authorities have time to put in their oar. So I slipped in here when I found that you were alone, and my object is this: Whatever may be the terms and conditions of your mother’s will, you will have to submit—whether you are pleased or not—and be silent as the grave, too. Now that you have read your mother’s letter, you have some idea of the burden that she bore in secret—the burden of her own sin. I loved your mother, Violet Arleigh!”
“You?”
The tone, the glance, the utter, stinging contempt, were enough to drive a man wild. He flushed angrily, and ground out an oath between his close-shut teeth. But he controlled himself.
“Never mind,” he snarled; “you are having your day now, my time will come before long. Scratch, bite, tear about your cage, my little tigress, your claws will be cut soon, and you will find yourself utterly powerless!”
“Leave me!” she commanded, her voice trembling with indignation. “How dare you address me in this way? How dare you come to me with these matters, and my poor mother scarcely cold in death? Go! or I will summon the servants to put you out!”
“Ah, you will? But before many days shall pass you will find the tables turned with a vengeance. Violet Arleigh, there is a dark cloud resting over your life, a cloud which will never disappear, a stain that can not be wiped out—the stain of black disgrace. When the time comes for the truth to be known, how many of your present dear friends, think you, will remain true? How many will rally around you and stand by you through everything? My word for it, you will not find one. When the truth comes out, who will care for you and seek you for a wife? Not your handsome lover, Leonard Yorke; and even if his love is strong enough to stand the shock of the disgrace and exposure of your family secret, his mother—proud Helen Yorke—would sooner see her only son dead than wedded to you, the child of——”
“Hush! I forbid you to speak such words to me. I forbid you to mention the name of Leonard Yorke.”
“Yes! Too good to pass the lips of a reprobate like Gil Warrington, I suppose? But I know the world better than you do, my dear Miss Arleigh, and I assure you that, when this that I have to tell becomes known, when the truth is made public, you will prove your friends then, and my word for it, Leonard Yorke will not be among the number. He will be the very first to desert you.”
“It is false! Mr. Warrington, I will hear no more of this. Leave me! Have you no pity, no compassion for me, whose mother lies upstairs dead and cold?”
An ugly sneer disfigured his face.
“Business before pleasure,” he returned, coarsely; “and my errand with you admits of no delay. Once more I ask you the question: Are you going to act a submissive part, Miss Violet Arleigh, in that which is before us?”
She turned away. She could not speak.
“Go!” she repeated, sternly, waving her hand in the direction of the door. “I can bear no more of this. Listen! Some one is coming to me now!”
There was a faint rap at the door of the room, and then Leonard Yorke’s voice called softly:
“Violet! Violet! May I come in? Don’t stay there all alone, dear Violet! Open the door and let me come in and comfort you.”
Gilbert Warrington’s lips parted in a cruel smile.
“Yes, to be sure! Let him comfort you while he may, my dear Violet! His days of comforting will soon be at an end. You had better promise me what I ask,” he added, harshly. “If you do not, you will be sorry. Say yes—just the one word yes! Violet—I know that your simple verbal promise will be as good as another person’s guarantee—just say yes, and I will step out of the window yonder and be gone before Mr. Leonard Yorke suspects my presence here. You had better consent, Violet.”
She stood hesitating, trembling, paling. Her whole soul revolted from the bondage into which she would be selling herself by this promise; for well she knew the nature of the man with whom she had to deal—knew that he was unscrupulous and a thorough villain. And must she bind herself to obey him blindly? How did she know to what evil purpose she was pledging herself? He drew nearer, and grasping her arm once more, glared down into her pale, frightened face.
“Promise me! Swear to obey me!” he hissed, bleakly. “I will only require you to follow your mother’s instructions; your mother who was—well, her letter tells you, does it not, that she had a bad, black secret hidden away in her past life, and that I alone shared that secret with her?—did she not write that in the letter that you have just read?”
Violet’s head drooped, but the pale lips managed to falter forth the two words:
“She did.”
“Very well. Then you will believe me and obey me? Quick, Violet—your answer! Say yes, for Leonard Yorke is determined to get into this room, and some one is with him! Upon my word, that some one is Hilda Rutledge! People say that Leonard thinks so much of your cousin Hilda that he really does not know which of you is the dearest. The door of this room is locked; but he will continue to rap at it, and if you do not open it he will summon the household and break it down. Speak, Violet—at once! Do you promise to obey me? Is it yes?”
She can hardly speak, she is so faint and frightened, and the gaze of the basilisk eyes riveted upon her white face seems to eat into her heart.
Tap, tap, at the door again, and once more Leonard’s voice calls in tones of alarm:
“Violet, dear Violet, open the door! What is the matter? Are you ill?”
And then the voice of Hilda Rutledge takes up the refrain:
“Violet, dearest, unlock the door; we are all so frightened about you. Come, dear!”
“Will you obey me?” hisses the serpent at her side. “Is it yes?”
Her eyes, wild with horror, meet his; she sinks into a seat.
“Yes!” she gasps, in a feeble whisper.
“Very well. Remember!”
With a look of triumph upon his evil face, Gilbert Warrington leaps through the open window and disappears.
Violet staggers slowly to the door and unlocks it; then she falls to the floor in a swoon.
