“Just wait one moment before you take such desperate measures. I want to ask a question before you call out the neighborhood to protect you. How do you think the story of your mother’s and father’s early history will look on the front page of The Era?”
In the light of the window that fell across them both he had the satisfaction of seeing her face freeze into horrified amazement.
“It will be the greatest scoop The Era’s had since The Trumpet became Shackleton’s property. There’s not a soul here that even suspects it. It will be a bombshell to the city, involving people of the highest position, like the Shackletons, and people of the most unquestioned respectability, like the Moreaus. Oh—it will be good reading!”
Her eyes, fastened on him, were full of anguish, but it had not bewildered her. In the stress of the moment her mind remained clear and active.
“Is the world interested in stories of the dead?” she heard herself saying in a cold voice.
“Everybody’s interested in scandals. And what a scandal it is! How people will smack their lips over it! Shackleton a Mormon, and you his only legitimate child. Your mother and father, that all the world honored, common free-lovers. Your mother sold to your father for a pair of horses, and living with him in a cabin in the Sierra for six months before they even attempted to straighten things out by a bogus marriage ceremony. Why, it’s a splendid story! The Era’s had nothing with as much ginger as that for months!”
“And who’d believe you? Who are you, to know about the early histories of the pioneer families? Who’d believe the words of a man who comes from nobody knows where, whose very name people doubt? If Mrs. Shackleton and I deny the truth of your story, who’d believe you then?”
“You forget that I have under my hand the man who was witness of the transaction whereby Moreau bought your mother from Shackleton for a pair of horses.”
“A drunken thief! He stole all my father had and ran away. Can his word carry the same weight as mine to whose interest it would be to prove myself Shackleton’s daughter? No. The only real proof in existence is the marriage certificate. And I have that. And so long as I have that any story you choose to publish I can get up and deny.”
He knew she was right. Even with Harney his story would be discredited, unbacked by the one piece of genuine evidence of the first marriage—the certificate which she possessed. Her unexpected recognition of the point staggered him. He had thought to break her resistance by threats which even to him seemed shameful, and only excusable because of the stress he found himself in. Now he saw her as defiantly unconquered as ever. In his rage he pushed her back against the wall, crying at her: