The servant was now going up the attic steps, but paused to look down upon the scene.
“Father, what are you about to do?” asked Elsie, holding back. Her attire had been very much disordered by the violence with which she had been hurried in, her cloak and hood had fallen off below stairs; now her beautiful dress was tumbled, and her hair in wild disorder. “What are you going to do, father?” she asked again, drawing back.
But he turned upon her sharply, shook her furiously, as though he would have shaken the life from out her; and then seeing the horrified gaze of the servant standing on the stairs, he exclaimed, “Up into the attic, and wait for me there, instantly, sirrah. And consider yourself already sold to a trader, for your insolence in watching me!”
The appalled servant vanished up the steps, and the unmasked tyrant turned to Elsie, and tightening the grasp that he had never relinquished, dragged her to the foot of the attic stairs. Here the girl sank with all her weight upon him, upheld only by his hand.
“Up, up the stairs with you!” he exclaimed fiercely.
Elsie had too much physical strength to swoon, and too much presence of mind to scream. She would not have terrified her poor mother to no good purpose. Yet her agitation was so great, with augmented astonishment and terror, that she could not move.
He seized her violently, drew her up the stairs until they had reached the narrow attic passage, and commanding the negro to unlock the door that stood before them, forced her into the room; dismissed the servant, locked the door on the inside, and turned upon her. Elsie had dropped into an old flag-bottomed armchair, where she sat shivering with cold and fear. He turned upon the delicate and trembling girl fiercely, scornfully, triumphantly, tauntingly, as if she had been some rough male adversary in his power. He placed the key in his pocket, buttoned up his overcoat, and stood looking at her with a bitter, sarcastic laugh, saying:
“You have insulted and provoked me sufficiently this evening, Miss Garnet! You were very happy and confident an hour ago. What do you think of your prospects now?”
Elsie shuddered and was silent.
“Can you escape from this room? Will you jump from one of those windows and fall a hundred feet? Will your lover find a ladder long enough to reach you? I think not. Can you break that lock? I think not. Will you bribe your jailer? I think not; for I shall be your jailer myself. No one else shall enter this room. And now listen to me,” and taking a chair, he sat down before her, and said in a hard, harsh voice, “I do not care one jot for all the miserable, contemptible love sentiment in the world; I never did! I do not believe in it. I never did! But that which I want, and that which I will have, is the union of these two joining estates, Mount Calm and Hemlock Hollow. That project is as dear to old Mr. Hardcastle as it is to me. It was for that reason, and not upon account of any trifling, mutual predilection of yours, that we were about to negotiate a marriage between my daughter and his nephew, when fortunately Lionel came home in time to arrest the execution of the plan; of course it was perfectly easy to see what then became the duty of all parties.”