"I make my running commentaries in that way, Mr. Bainrothe. But a truce to recrimination and reminiscence both. Let us adhere strictly to the letter and verse of our affairs. These papers form the subject of your visit, I believe. Know, at once, that the first I will sign, on certain conditions, bitter and humiliating as I feel it to be obliged to do this; but, that I will ever consent to yield the guardianship of my sister wholly to Evelyn Erie and her husband, or divest myself of my house and furniture, or my wild lands in Georgia, to you, here first named to me, in consideration of expenses already incurred and to be incurred for Mabel's education, and my own safe-keeping, during a long attack of lunacy; or that I will, to crown the whole iniquitous requisition, consent to give my hand in marriage to that scoundrel—Luke Gregory!—are visions as vain as those of the child who tried to grasp a comet or the moon—or, to descend in comparison, to catch a bird by putting salt on its tail! There, you have my ultimatum; now go and make the best of it!"
"I am prepared for your objections—prepared, too, to overcome them," he said, coolly. "Take time to consider all this. I do not expect an answer to-day, did not when I came, nor will I accept one signature without the whole. There is no compromise possible. As to your marriage—it must be accomplished before you leave this room. I, as a magistrate, can tie the knot—fast enough to bind all the other agreements to certain fulfillments, for Gregory is a friend of mine, and a man of honor, and will see them carried out to the letter. He loves you, too, and proves it, for he takes you penniless. Afterward a priest may complete the ceremony if you have any scruples. Then, of course, it rests between you and Gregory, whether you remain together or separate as wide as the poles—I shall wash my hands of the whole affair thereafter, having secured my good name and yours."
I stood with bowed head and moving lips before him—mutely, indignantly.
"I shall, however, make all this," he continued, "appear as well as possible to your friends and mine, especially, believe me, Miriam! I shall state, for your sake, that, after being rescued from the raft, you were partially insane, but still sufficiently mistress of yourself to coincide with me and your sisters in the wish to let your death as Miss Harz pass current with the world, until you should redeem your errors" (what errors?), "and be restored to health and perfect reason. You will see that your acknowledgment of the last paper includes these extenuating facts, when you have leisure to re-read it (for I saw how hastily you glanced over that one in particular); you must do me the favor to peruse it much more carefully," drawing on his gloves coolly, "before you make your final decision. You are very comfortable here, my dear girl," glancing around benignly, "but you have no conception of the frame of mind, bare walls, utter solitude, a fireless hearth and a frugal table, would bring about in a very few days or weeks, or even in one as resolute and defiant as yourself. I should be loath to try such an experiment or deprive you of your child—but necessitous non habet legem, the school-book says. I think you, too, studied a little Latin, Miriam?"
"Monster!"
"Not a very relevant or polite remark, I must confess. By-the-by, Miriam, as you stand before me with your well-poised figure—your blazing eyes—your quivering nostrils—your curling, compressed lip—your heaving chest (always a splendid feature in your physique), your folded arms, and the color coming and going in your pale-olive cheek, in the old flame-like way I used to admire so much in your girlhood—you are a splendid creature, by Jove! I could find it in my heart to love you still—there, it is out at last—if it were not for Mrs. Raymond—" glancing, as he spoke, in the direction of Mrs. Clayton, with a knowing smile, "It was your magnificent disdain that kindled the torch before. Beware how you revive that fanaticism of mine!"
I turned for one moment with an involuntary feeling of appeal to Mrs. Clayton, but her cold, green eyes were quivering in accordance with the smile that stretched her thin lips to a line of mocking mirth. One glimpse of sympathy would have carried me to her arms for refuge—distasteful as she was to me in every way save one. She, like myself, was a woman. But such perversion of all natural feeling estranged me from her irreconcilably and forever.
I was alone; shame, humiliation, despair, possessed me; indignation, for the insult I was forced to bear in her presence, filled my soul—I stood with my head cast down, tears raining on my bosom, my arms dropped nervelessly beside me, my hands clinched, my whole frame trembling with excitement.
Slowly and one by one came those convulsive sobs—that rend and wrench the physical frame as earthquakes do the earth. Then rose the sudden resolve—born of volcanic impulse, irresistible to mind as is the lava-flood to matter, sweeping before it all obstructions of reason, habit, expediency.
If it cost me my life I would avenge myself on this tiger, thirsting for my blood; I would anticipate him in his work of destruction, and the strength of Samson seemed to permeate my frame.