"'Wait a moment,' he said, still keeping that cold steel to my forehead, and still keeping his murderous eyes on my face; 'listen to what I shall do. The moment you cry out I shall fire, and you will fall down dead—I told you I was a desperate man. Before any one has time to come I shall place the bank-notes in your hand, and afterward I shall tell Sir Oswald that, hearing a noise in the library, and knowing money was kept there, I hastened down, and finding a thief, I fired, not knowing who it was—and you, being dead, cannot contradict me.'
"'You dare not be so wicked!' I cried.
"'I dare anything—I am a desperate man. I will do it, and the whole world will believe me; they will hold you a thief, but they will believe me honest.'
"And, Vane, I knew that what he said was true; I knew that if I chose death I should die in vain—that I should be branded as a thief, who had been shot in the very act of stealing.
"'I will give you two minutes,' he said, 'and then, unless you take an oath not to betray me, I will fire.'
"I was willing to lose my life, Vane," she continued, "but I could not bear that all the world should brand me as a thief—I could not bear that a Darrell should be reckoned among the lowest of criminals. I vow to you it was no coward fear for my life, no weak dread of death that forced the oath from my lips, but it was a shrinking from being found dead there with Sir Oswald's money in my hand—a shrinking from the thought that they would come to look upon my face and say to each other, 'Who would have thought, with all her pride, that she was a thief?' It was that word 'thief,' burning my brain, that conquered.
"'You have one minute more,' said the hissing whisper, 'and then, unless you take the oath——'
"'I will take it,' I replied; 'I do so, not to save my life, but my fair name.'
"'It is well for you,' he returned; and then he forced me to kneel, while he dictated to me the words of an oath so binding and so fast that I dared not break it.
"Shuddering, sick at heart, wishing I had risked all and cried out for help, I repeated it, and then he laid the revolver down.