“You will find it no mummery, and are wrong in supposing money will be of the slightest avail to you,” was the reply.
Lord Bellefield, however, still considering his idea a right one, and accounting for this speech as he had already accounted for the presence of the weapons—viz., as a means of intimidating him, in order to extort from his fears a higher ransom, continued—
“My good fellow, you have completely mistaken your man; all your tragedy nonsense is quite thrown away upon me. The affair is simply a matter of business: you require money, and knowing my rank, imagine me a Croesus. I am nothing of the kind, but I can make it well worth your while to set me free; conduct me safely to the Square of St. Mark, and I will give you a hundred Napoleons.”
“A million curses on your money!” exclaimed the other furiously; “may the bitter malediction of a desperate man cleave to the rank and riches which have served to add a false splendour to as mean and pitiful a scoundrel as ever disgraced God’s earth. Fool! let me undeceive you—I am Miles Hardy” (as he spoke he flung down his mask), “the brother of Jane—your victim—I have brought you here to die. Now do you think your money, that money which you refused to give to save her from a life of infamy, or a beggar’s death, is likely to bribe me to change my purpose?”
For a moment Lord Bellefield was utterly confounded by this declaration; he had never been aware that Jane possessed a brother, and the surprise added to his discomfiture; besides, hardened as he was, he knew that he had deeply wronged the girl, and a superstitious instinct of the justice of the retribution which had overtaken him helped still more effectually to terrify and crush him: for once both his haughty spirit and his presence of mind failed him, and mistaking the character of the man with whom he had to deal, he resolved first if possible to deceive, then to cajole and bribe him.
“Refuse money to Jane Hardy!” he began in a tone of feigned surprise; “you must have strangely deceived yourself: while she remained with me I lavished hundreds upon her, and when, with the caprice of her sex, she chose to leave me for some more favoured swain, as I imagine, ignorance of her abode alone prevented my settling a liberal allowance upon her. Even now I am ready to do so if she wishes it—where is she?”
A look of contemptuous anger, which had overspread Miles Hardy’s face as Lord Bellefield uttered these falsehoods, gave place to an expression of deep solemnity as he replied, “She is where you will be ere another hour has passed, wretched liar that you are—gone to answer for her sins before her God!”
“Dead!” exclaimed Lord Bellefield, involuntarily shocked into an expression of feeling. Miles regarded him attentively; had he discerned in him any symptoms of real grief for her loss, any signs of true penitence for the destruction he had wrought, there was that working in the brother’s heart which might even yet have saved him. But a doom was upon the seducer, and a fresh display of his evil, sordid nature hastened it. “Poor girl!” he said; “ ’pon my word, Hardy, I’m quite shocked at this sudden intelligence; I really was excessively fond of her at one time—a—I mean to say, before she chose to run away from me. However, you must not take the affair so deeply to heart: I can assure you these things are happening every day, and I always meant to make her a liberal settlement; but as that is now unfortunately impossible, we must see what can be done for you.” Having delivered himself of this heartless speech, which he considered a model of diplomacy, Lord Bellefield paused to observe its effects upon his auditor. Miles stood for a moment as if absorbed in grief, murmuring to himself, “My poor Jane, and was it for such a thing as this you sacrificed your young life? My poor, poor sister!” Then suddenly raising his head, he said, with a glance of the most withering scorn—
“Your mean lies will prove of as little use to you as your money; I loathe it, them, and you alike. I have told you I brought you here to die, and I have told you true; but I am no assassin, and if you have the courage of a man, you have one chance yet remaining. On that table lie six weapons, three for you and three for me; choose which you will, and come on; only if the first fails we must try the second, and if that does not end the matter there still remains the third. Come, make your choice.”
“Well, but hear me——” began Lord Bellefield, turning very pale.