“Your friend is very thoughtful,” he sneered.
She turned toward the door with an air of weariness.
“This is our last interview,” she said coldly; “have you more to say?”
He made a quick stride toward the door, and placing himself before it, let his enforced calmness fall from him like a mantle of snow from a statue of fire, with all his hatred and disgust concentrated in the low, metallic tones in which he addressed her.
“I have only this to say: Your plans, which as yet I only half comprehend, will fail utterly. You fancy, perhaps, that this snare, into which I have fallen, will fetter my hands and prevent me from undoing your work. I cannot give life to the victim whose death lies at your door, the husband who was slain by your sin, but I can rescue your later victim, if her life, too, has not been sacrificed. As for these two wretches, whose parental claim is a figment of your own imagination, and this lover, who is the abettor, possibly the instigator, of your crimes, I shall find him out—”
“Stop,” she cried wildly, “I command you, stop!”
“Ah, that touches you! I repeat, I shall find him out. To succeed, you should have concealed his existence as effectually as you have concealed poor little Daisy.”
A death-like pallor overspreads the face of the woman before him. She stretches out her arms imploringly, her form sways as if she were about to fall, and she utters a wailing cry.
“As I have concealed Daisy? Oh, my God; my God! I see! I understand! My weakness, my folly, has done its work. I have killed my husband! I have brought a curse upon little Daisy! I have endangered your life and honor! I conceal our Daisy? Hear me, Heaven; henceforth I am nameless, homeless, friendless, until I have found Daisy Warburton and restored her to you!”
Her voice died in a low wail. She makes a forward movement, and then falls headlong at the feet of her stern accuser. For the second time in all her life, Leslie Warburton has fainted.