“He'll do as I bid him: he's a forger, in my power.”
To her wild stare he replied with a low, faint laugh. She clasped her fingers over her temples.
“Oh! no, no, no, no, no, no!” she screamed, and suddenly she rushed into the great room at her right. Her brother—was it a phantom?—stood before her. With one long, shrill scream, she threw herself into his arms, and cried, “It's a lie, darling, it's a lie!” and she had fainted.
He laid her in the great chair by the fire-place. With white lips, and with one fist shaking wildly in the air, he said, with a dreadful shiver in his voice,—
“You villain! you villain! you villain!”
“Don't you be a fool,” said Longcluse. “Ring for the maid. There must have been a crisis some time. I'm giving you a fair chance—trying to save you; they all faint—it's a trick with women.”
Longcluse looked into her lifeless face, with something of pity and horror mingling in the villany of his countenance.
