Hester made no reply to this tirade, but her trembling lips suddenly shut themselves firmly, and she looked boldly up into Scrivener’s face.
“Well, you are a handsome girl,” said that individual. He jumped down from his vantage ground, and clasped her in his arms.
“Let go at once,” she cried. She raised her hands and tried to push him from her.
“Hush, hush, old girl, not so loud,” he replied. “Why, what is the matter with you, Hetty? Ain’t a kiss welcome from your own true love?”
“Not at present,” she answered, “and if you are my true love, I don’t know that I am yours. You have played me false, Jim Scrivener, and I am not sure—no, I am by no means sure—that I want to have anything to do with you.”
“Well, now, you surprise me,” he said in astonishment which was by no means feigned. “I thought our agreement was fair and above board. I was to make a lady of you, Hester Winsome. With your looks, and that fine, bold, queenly way of yours, all you want, as I tell you over and over, is money and the name of an honest man at your back.”
“An honest man!” said Hester, her lip curling.
“Well, well,” Scrivener laughed as he spoke. “You must forgive a slip now and then,” he continued, “and in the eyes of the world I am a rare honest specimen, in a fair way to make a big fortune. When it is made, really made, Hester, my girl, we will forsake all the ways of evil. There is a new world at the other side of this old earth of ours, and we’ll settle down there and live as honest as any people in the land. Now you know our bargain. I am to make you a lady and my wife. We are to be married as soon as ever the registrar will do the job. You have fulfilled your part to the letter, splendidly, too, and now it is my turn.”
“All the same, you have deceived me,” said Hester. “We did make a bargain, but you meant more than I knew.”
“Ha, ha, you cannot blame me for being a little cunning,” said Scrivener. “I repeat, you did your part of the job splendidly. If I had told you all, the fat would have been in the fire—you would never have had the courage.”