"This is what I am, Ruth Jessup—the man who can prove who killed your father. The man who can hang your sweetheart on the highest gallows ever built in England. That is what I am, and what I will do, if you ever speak to him again."
"You! You!"
It was all the poor girl could say, this awful threat came on her so suddenly.
"You believe me. You would give the world not to believe me, but you do. Well, instead of the world you shall give me yourself. I want you enough to give up revenge for your sake. Isn't that love? I want you because of your obstinacy, which I mean to break down, day by day, till you are humble enough."
Ruth smiled scornfully. She had been so often terrified by such language that it had lost its force.
"I do not believe you," she said. "Would not believe an angel, if he dared to say so much."
"Will you believe your father's own handwriting?"
Storms took from an inner pocket of his vest a folded letter. Ruth knew it in an instant. It was the letter she had placed in her husband's hand that day when she saw him for one moment asleep in his chamber at "The Rest."
"Ha! ha! You turn white without reading it! You guess what it is. The handwriting is large enough to read at a safe distance. Make it out for yourself."
Ruth fastened her burning eyes on the paper, which he unfolded and held between his two hands, so near that she could make out the great crude letters; but it was beyond her reach had she attempted to possess herself of it, which he seemed to fear.