"Impayable!" I heard him murmur, softly, and, turning to the book-shelves, he left me for a time to master the contents of the three documents over which I was bending.
I read them in order as they were numbered, and became more and more indignant as their meaning opened upon my brain, and culminated at last in a sharp, sudden exclamation of utter disdain.
I started from my chair and approached him, paper in hand. I think for a few moments the idea of personal danger possessed him, and the vision of a concealed dirk or pistol swam before his eyes, which he shielded with his hand, while he placed a chair between us; and, truth to say, there was murder in my heart, and in my eyes as well, I suppose, even if the mistrust went no further.
I could have obliterated him from the face of the earth at that moment as remorselessly as if he had been a viper in my path striking to sting me. Yet I advanced toward him with no demonstration or intentions of this kind, having the habits of lady-like breeding and usual innocence of weapons, and ignorance of the use thereof as well, to restrain me.
I forget. Close to my heart lay one of the sharp, shining chisels I had taken from the glazier in the bath-room.
"What is it you object to, Miriam?" he asked, in faltering tones, as his hand fell and his glimmering eyes encountered mine.
From that day I have believed the legend which tells that, when the Roman, helpless in his dungeon, thundered forth, "Slave! darest thou kill Caius Marius?" the armed minion of murder turned and fled, dropping the knife he held, in his panic, at the feet of the man he came to slay. Almost such effect was for a time observable in Basil Bainrothe.
It made me smile bitterly. "All, every thing," I answered. "The whole requisition, from first to last, is base, dastardly—crime-confessing, too—if seen with discriminating eyes. Why, if innocent of fraud toward me and mine, should you ask a formal acknowledgment on my part as to your just administration of my affairs, and a recantation of all I have said to the contrary, both with regard to yourself and Evelyn Erle? Such are the contents of this first paper, the only one that I could, under any possible circumstances, be induced to sign as a compromise with your villainy; for, not to gain my own life or liberty, will I ever put hand to the others, infamous as they are on the very surface."
"Miriam, this violence surprises me, is wholly unlooked for, and unnecessary," he remarked, mildly. "From what Mrs. Clayton has told me, I had supposed that my disinterested care and assiduity with regard to your condition were about to meet their reward in your rational submission to the necessities of your case and mine. Resume your seat, I entreat you, and let us calmly discuss a matter that seems to agitate you so unduly. Perhaps I may be able to place it before you in a better light ere we have concluded our interview. You will sit down again, Miriam, will you not?"
"Oh, surely, if you are alarmed; but, really, I should suppose, with Mrs. Clayton and Dr. Englehart no doubt in call, you need not be so tremulous. There, you are quite safe, I assure you, in your old place, with the table between us;" and I pointed derisively to the fauteuil he had occupied so gracefully a few moments before, and into which he now slowly subsided.