“I will take care that he does not,” returned Rily. “Trust me to subdue him——”
“And without bloodshed?” observed the old woman, shuddering—for, depraved and wicked as she was, she grew cold and her heart sank within her at the idea of murder.
“Come, if you’re squeamish, you had better abandon the project and leave it all to me,” said the Doctor. “If Vitriol Bob should place my life in danger, at that moment he is a dead man. Self-preservation, ma’am, is the first law of nature. At the same time, I shall not kill him, unless it is to save myself: of this you may be assured.”
The old woman remained silent for some moments. Should she embark in an enterprise so replete with danger?—should she incur the risk of becoming an accomplice in a murder? She trembled at the thought: and yet her money—the money that she had come over to England to obtain—would be totally lost to her were she to shrink from the endeavour to recover it. It was true that, even if it were regained, one half would pass into the hands of a stranger: but was it not better to return to Paris with two thousand seven hundred pounds in her pocket, than with an empty purse? The stake was worth venturing;—and her indecision vanished.
“I am not squeamish in the matter,” she said at length. “Our bargain and our arrangements hold good in all respects. That villain Torrens shall not have the laugh against me: on the contrary, I must be avenged upon him!”
“There!—now you are my fine old hyena—my adorable tiger-cat, once again!” cried the Doctor. “I long to see you pounce upon old Torrens, as you call him; and I would give the best five years of my life, could I endow you with a complete set of claws, instead of those comparatively harmless finger-nails! Wouldn’t you tear his eyes out of his head? wouldn’t you strike them deep into his flesh? Do you know that Satan will obtain a glorious acquisition when the time comes for him to make a fiend of you?”
And again the monster’s horrible hilarity rang through the little chamber, as he threw himself back in the chair and laughed with the most savage heartiness.
“For mercy’s sake! cease this unnatural gaiety,” exclaimed the old woman, scarcely able to subdue her rage.
“Oh! I must laugh,” cried the wretch, sputtering through his frightful hare-lip,—“if it is only to make you look as ferocious as you do now.”
Mrs. Mortimer turned towards the window with disgust; and the wretch’s mirth died away in guttural sounds.