CHAPTER XXXII.
Pluma Hurlhurst never quailed beneath the cold, mocking glance bent upon her.
There was no hope for her; disgrace and ruin stared her in the face; she would defy even Fate itself to the bitter end with a heroism worthy of a better cause. In that hour and that mood she was capable of anything.
She leaned against a tall palm-tree, looking at him with a strange expression on her face, as she made answer, slowly:
“You may depend upon it, I shall never marry you, Lester Stanwick. If I do not marry Rex I shall go unmarried to the grave. Ah, no!” she cried desperately; “Heaven will have more mercy, more pity than to take him from me.”
“What mercy or pity did you feel in thrusting poor little Daisy Brooks from his path?” asked Stanwick, sarcastically. “Your love has led you through dangerous paths. I should call it certainly a most perilous love.”
She recoiled from him with a low cry, those words again still ringing in her ears, “A perilous love.”
She laughed with a laugh that made even Stanwick’s blood run cold––a horrible laugh.
“I do not grieve that she is dead,” she said. “You ought to understand by this time I shall allow nothing to come between Rex and me.”