"Her engagement to Lorin! My wife's engagement!"
He burst into a coarse laugh of enjoyment—a long laugh, during the course of which Clare watched him impatiently.
"Well, what do you mean to do?" she asked at length. "Do you mean to stand quietly by and see your model cousin take not only your inheritance but actually your wife from under your nose?"
"No, by——, I don't! Laline shall come with me. I'll break her spirit and tame her pride for her! She always gave promise of being pretty, but she's a real beauty now! So that's the reason of her black looks and scornful words—eh? Husband number one had turned up to spoil sport just as husband number two was fairly hooked. Upon my soul, the impudence of it beats me! And this slim, Christian-martyr-like saint, who looks almost too pure for things of this earth, was coolly planning bigamy all the time, and would have carried it through but for the chance of your finding her out! Hang the hussy! She has cost me a pretty penny already. Her father ruined me, when I married her to get him out of a hole, and she bolted on our wedding-day——"
"On your wedding-day? I thought you had been married a month!"
"How should I know? It all happened years ago. Anyhow, there shan't be any doubt that she's my wife now."
"I wouldn't claim her to-night if I were you," purred Clare. "I wouldn't come to the house and make a scene so late. I would wait until the morning. Lorin is coming in the morning at about twelve, so you will know when to time your visit. But you must take her by surprise and appeal to her sense of duty, otherwise I know her quite well enough to be sure she will give you the slip again. For you know she doesn't like you."
"I know she hates me," he returned coolly, stopping the cab as he spoke. "Here we are in the High Street, and I'll stroll back home and think things over. My head aches a bit. I know Laline hates me, but, by Jove, she doesn't hate me as you hate her! I could almost find it in me to be sorry for the poor wretch now that you've got your knife so deeply into her," he concluded, as Clare bent out over the hansom and gave him her hand in parting. "You are delighted with this night's work," he said roughly, "because you think you have handed over a girl you hate to a drunken brute who will ill-treat her."
"I am glad," she said, with a narrow smile that showed her white teeth, "to have found for Laline a husband of whom any girl might be proud. Good-night, Mr. Armstrong."