“Miss Arden, you may hate me; you can't despise me. You must hear me, because you are in my power. I relent, mind you, thus far, that I give you one chance more of reconciliation; don't, for God's sake, throw it from you!” (he was extending his open hand to receive hers). “Why should you prefer an unequal war with me? I tell you frankly you are in my power—don't misunderstand me—in my power to this degree, that you shall voluntarily, as the more tolerable of two alternatives, submit with abject acquiescence to every one of my conditions. Here is my hand; think of the degradation I submit to in asking you to take it. You gave me no chance when I asked forgiveness. I tender you a full forgiveness; here is my hand, beware how you despise it.”
Fearful as he appeared in her sight, her fear gave way before her kindling spirit. She had stood before him pale as death—anger now fired her eye and cheek.
“How dare you, Sir, hold such language to me! Do you suppose, if I had told my brother of your cowardice and insolence as I left the abbey the other day, you would have dared to speak to him, much less to me? Let me pass, and never while you live presume to address me more.”
Mr. Longcluse, with a slow recoil, smiling fixedly, and bowing, drew back and opened the door for her to pass. He did not any longer look like a villain whose heart had failed him.
Her heart fluttered violently with fear as she saw that he stepped out after her, and walked by her side toward the house. She quickened her pace in great alarm.
“If you had liked me ever so little,” said he in that faint and horrible tone she remembered—“one, the smallest particle, of disinterested liking—the grain of mustard-seed—I would have had you fast, and made you happy, made you adore me; such adoration that you could have heard from my own lips the confession of my crimes, and loved me still—loved me more desperately. Now that you hate me, and I hate you, and have you in my power, and while I hate still admire you—still choose you for my wife—you shall hear the same story, and think me all the more dreadful. You sought to degrade me, and I'll humble you in the dust. Suppose I tell you I'm a criminal—the kind of man you have read of in trials, and can't understand, and can scarcely even believe in—the kind of man that seems to you as unaccountable and monstrous as a ghost—your terrors and horror will make my triumph exquisite with an immense delight. I don't want to smooth the way for you; you do nothing for me. I disdain hypocrisy. Terror drives you on; fate coerces you; you can't help yourself, and my delight is to make the plunge terrible. I reveal myself that you may know the sort of person you are yoked to. Your sacrifice shall be the agony of agonies, the death of deaths, and yet you'll find yourself unable to resist. I'll make you submissive as ever patient was to a mad doctor. If it took years to do it, you shall never stir out of this house till it is done. Every spark of insolence in your nature shall be trampled out; I'll break you thoroughly. The sound of my step shall make your heart jump; a look from me shall make you dumb for an hour. You shall not be able to take your eyes off me while I'm in sight, or to forget me for a moment when I am gone. The smallest thing you do, the least word you speak, the very thoughts of your heart, shall all be shaped under one necessity and one fear.” (She had reached the hall door). “Up the steps! Yes; you wish to enter? Certainly.”
With flashing eyes and head erect, the beautiful girl stepped into the hall, without looking to the right or to the left, or uttering one word, and walked quickly to the foot of the great stair.
If she thought that Mr. Longcluse would respect the barrier of the threshold, she was mistaken. He entered but one step behind her, shut the heavy hall door with a crash, dropped the key into his coat pocket, and signing with his finger to the man in the room to the right, that person stood up briskly, and prepared for action. He closed the door again, saying simply, “I'll call.”
The young lady, hearing his step, turned round and stood on the stair, confronting him fiercely.
“You must leave this house this moment,” she cried, with a stamp, with gleaming eyes and very pale.