“Nevertheless, you are still her mother,” persisted Jack Rily.
“I discard her—for ever!” responded the horrible old woman.
“Well—you astounded me at first,” said the Doctor, in a slow tone, as he reflected profoundly upon the extreme step suggested: “but I can look at the business with a more steady eye now. I always thought that I was bad enough: but, by God! you beat anything I ever knew in the shape of wickedness.”
“Then you refuse—you decline?” exclaimed Mrs. Mortimer, interrogatively, while rage convulsed her entire frame—for she dreaded lest the money should be lost, and Laura escape her vengeance.
“By Satan!” cried the Doctor; “if you have pluck enough to propose, I am not the man to refuse to execute the scheme. But how do I know that when the critical moment comes, remorse won’t seize on you, and you’ll cry off?”
“When I have made up my mind to anything, I am not to be deterred by difficulty—danger—or compunction,” answered the old woman. “I implored the ungrateful girl to give me a glass of water, when I was choking—and she refused. What mercy can I have towards her?”
“None,” responded Jack Rily. “But you must enter into farther explanations, old tiger-cat: because at present I’m pretty well in the dark relative to the precise nature of your plans, and the way in which they are to be executed. It’s now four o’clock in the afternoon—and we must settle everything without delay, if it’s to be done to-night.”
“It is for to-night,” said the old woman, emphatically. “My daughter and her husband have taken a house in Pimlico——”
“How many servants?” demanded Jack Rily.
“I cannot exactly answer the question: but I know that there is a French lady’s maid; and I saw an English valet, who had been recommended by the house-agent——”