“Oh, please do not talk to me in that way, Mr. Stanwick,” she cried, starting to her feet in wild alarm. “Indeed you must not,” she stammered.
“Why not?” he demanded, a merciless smile stirring beneath his heavy mustache. “I consider that you belong to me. I mean to make you my wife in very truth.”
Daisy threw up her hands in a gesture of terror heart-breaking to see, shrinking away from him in quivering horror, her sweet face ashen pale.
“Oh, go away, go away!” she cried out. “I am growing afraid of you. I could never marry you, and I would not if I could. I shall always be grateful to you for what you have done for me, but, oh, go away, and leave me now, for my trouble is greater than I can bear!”
“You would not if you could,” he repeated, coolly, smiling so strangely her blood seemed to change to ice in her veins. “I thank you sincerely for your appreciation of me. I did not dream, however, your aversion to me was so deeply rooted. That makes little difference, however. I shall make you my wife this very day all the same; business, urgent business, 67 calls me away from Elmwood to-day. I shall take you with me as my wife.”
She heard the cruel words like one in a dream.
“Rex! Rex!” she sobbed, under her breath. Suddenly she remembered Rex had left her––she was never to look upon his face again. He had left her to the cold mercies of a cruel world. Poor little Daisy––the unhappy, heart-broken girl-bride––sat there wondering what else could happen to her. “God has shut me out from His mercy,” she cried; “there is nothing for me to do but to die.”
“I am a desperate man, Daisy,” pursued Stanwick, slowly. “My will is my law. The treatment you receive at my hands depends entirely upon yourself––you will not dare defy me!” His eyes fairly glowed with a strange fire that appalled her as she met his passionate glance.
Then Daisy lifted up her golden head with the first defiance she had ever shown, the deathly pallor deepening on her fair, sweet, flower-like face, and the look of a hunted deer at bay in the beautiful velvety agonized eyes, as she answered:
“I refuse to marry you, Mr. Stanwick. Please go away and leave me in peace.”