“Madelaine, have pity!”
“And cruelly struck him down.”
“Madelaine. All you say is not true.”
“Not true? Go up to where he lies hovering between life and death, and see your work. Coward! Villain! Oh, that I should e’er have been so weak as to think that I loved such a wretch as you!”
He drew himself up.
“It is not true,” he said. “I did not commit that theft; and it was in my agony and shame at being found before the safe that I struck him down.”
“You confess you were there—that you were a partner in the crime?”
“Yes, I was there,” said Harry slowly; “and I sinned. Well, I am ready. Take your revenge. I am in your hands. You have the evidence of my crime. Denounce me, and let me go out of your sight for ever.”
“And my father’s old friend—my second father? And Louise, my more than sister. What of them?”
He quailed before her as she stood, her eyes flashing, a hectic flush on either cheek; and he felt he had never known Madelaine Van Heldre till then.