‘When I spoke to you last,’ persisted Portland, ‘things were quite different. Then you expected your lover to return to you any day, and you were horrified at the idea of stepping from one equivocal position to another. Now all is changed. Ilfracombe will never live with you again. You are sure of that. He has left you unprotected, and thrown you back upon a life for which he unfitted you without any prospects for the future—a ruined woman, yet with all the instincts of a lady. And I offer you marriage—an honest position if nothing else, and a return to some of the luxuries of life to which you have been so long accustomed. Is it not worth thinking over?’
Nell looked at Jack Portland steadily. She had always hated and despised him, and never more so than at the present moment—but he held the fate of Ilfracombe in his hands. He could ruin his fortunes and destroy his domestic happiness—and he put it in her power to save him. What if she could do it? Would it be a greater sacrifice than flinging herself into the water had been? Could it be a crueller fate than that which she endured now? Could anything—even marriage with Jack Portland, prove more bitter than her present existence and the bare outlook for the future?
‘What security would you give me—in case of my complying with your proposal—that my sacrifice would not be wasted, that you would not continue to lead Ilfracombe into extravagance and folly until you had ruined him?’
‘Your best security would lie in the possession of her ladyship’s letters,’ was the reply. ‘She has such a wholesome dread of my producing them at present that she dares not influence her husband to give up my acquaintance. But Madam Nora hates me too genuinely to delay setting her own machinery in motion one minute after she knows she has no more to fear from me. Set your mind at ease on that score, Miss Llewellyn. The whole matter lies in a nutshell—my possession of those letters. They are the locks of Samson—the heel of Achilles. Once take them out of my hands and I am powerless to harm—my vulnerable spot is found.’
‘Tell me all your conditions,’ continued Nell in a low voice.
Jack Portland’s eyes glistened as he exclaimed eagerly,—
‘They shall not be difficult ones, my dear. If you will consent to come with me and be married at the registrar’s office the letters are yours.’
‘No, no, I will not trust you, Mr Portland. I must have the letters first.’
‘I have greater faith than you have. I believe I can trust you. You are too noble a woman to deceive me.’
‘If I say I will marry you I will marry you. You may rely on that. My worst enemies never called me a liar. But I promise nothing more.’