“Now God give me strength for the work I’m going to do!” she cried, with strangling rage. “To think that such a man should dare to speak to me of love—should dare to clasp my hand with the stain of my father’s blood yet fresh on his! I could kill him with my own hand—coward, dastard, sneak, assassin! I hate him—I hate him!”
She threw herself on her bed again in a paroxysm of uncontrollable fury. She arose at length, calm, alert, her cheeks flushed with brilliant colour, her great eyes dilated wide and sparkling with courage.
The knocker struck sharply and she remembered with a start that Steve Hoyle had returned on the midnight train and would call this morning. She heard Maggie show Steve into the library.
Without waiting for her breakfast she hastened to meet him, and he plunged at once into the purpose of his call:
“Has John Graham yet confessed his leadership?”
“He will to-day,” was the quiet answer.
“The fame of your desperate love affair has set the town agog,” Steve laughed triumphantly.
“Doubtless,” she replied moodily.
“I’ve everything arranged—the men are only waiting for the word.”
“I prefer that the law take its course. I’m not ready to commit murder,” she said emphatically.