"I should need five hundred at least, if—if it is to be of any use," he said, gloomily.
It was more than she expected, but she showed no signs of flinching. "Five hundred, then," she said, rising as if to conclude the interview. "Will it do, if I let you have it to-morrow?"
"Perfectly. Elizabeth, you are an angel. I can't thank you enough." He advanced towards her with outstretched arms, but with a gesture of repulsion she waved him aside.
"Don't thank me," she said, coldly. "This is a bargain for our mutual advantage. I will fulfil my share of it if you remember yours. And now, as we have nothing more to discuss, I think I will ask you to excuse me." She made him a stately inclination, picked up her book and sailed from the room in undiminished dignity and apparent unconcern.
But when she was alone and had locked herself into her room to think over her misery, then, indeed, the situation stared her in the face in its true colors. Her own words, "I like my freedom," rang mockingly in her ears. She was not free, but a slave; slave of a man who had her in his power, and would use it, as time went on, more and more unscrupulously. This time it was five hundred that he demanded; next time it would be a thousand. What could she do? Somehow or another, he must be satisfied. Anything was better, any sacrifice, any humiliation, than to allow him to go to Gerard with that bare statement of facts, "We were married at Cranston, last July!" The truth, devoid of any of the softening evasions by which she cloaked it to her own mind; the redeeming circumstances which excused, if they did not justify, her silence.
Her bitterest enemy must admit that the position was a hard one. A contract entered into hastily by a thoughtless girl, on the impulse of the moment; a quarter of an hour in an empty church one summer day; a few words spoken before a sleepy old clergyman and indifferent witnesses—could such things as these have power to ruin one's whole life? No, no—her heart cried out wildly to the contrary. The whole episode seemed, in the retrospect, so dream-like. It was easy to imagine that it had never happened. And yet, had she the courage to ignore it?... And, even if she had, there was always Paul to remind her of it, who would not give her up without a terrible struggle, that must, without fail, come to Gerard's ears.
There was only one hope that she could see, and that was wild and irrational; the hope Paul had himself suggested. If that prediction could be fulfilled! Elizabeth shuddered. It was terrible to think of such a thing; terrible to obtain one's own happiness at the cost of another person's life. She did not really wish Paul dead—that would be wicked. And yet—and yet—the thought pressed irresistibly upon her—if it had to be!—if it had to be! What a blessed relief—what an end to all this misery! "Oh, I do wish it, I do wish it!" she broke out, speaking aloud, unconsciously. "I would give anything in this world to hear of his death."
She stopped, startled at the sound of her own voice. The wish shocked her, even in the moment of expressing it. Her wishes were so often fulfilled—she had an almost superstitious faith in their efficacy. If this one were fulfilled, what then?—For a moment she, thinking it over, balanced possibilities; and then with a stifled cry, fell on her knees and hid her face in her hands.
"Oh, I'm growing so wicked," she sobbed out. "It's because I'm so miserable. Only let me have what I want, and I'll be different; I'll be the kind of woman that he admires; only—I must find a way, I must have what I want—first."