“Yourself.”
“Myself!” Leslie gasps and her brain reels. “Myself!” she controls her agitation, and asks fiercely: “Woman, what do you dare to say?”
“Only this,” Mamma continues, very firmly and with the tiger look dawning in her eye. “You have no money, but you have beauty, and that is much to a man. Will you marry the man who will find your little girl?”
In spite of her weakness, Leslie springs up and stands above Mamma, a fierce light blazing in her eyes.
“Woman, answer me!” she cries fiercely; “do you know where that child is?”
“I? Oh, no, my dear.”
“Is there another, a man, who knows?”
Slowly Mamma rises, and the two face each other with set features.
“There is a man,” says Mamma, swaying her body slightly as she speaks, and almost intoning her words—“There is a man who swears he can find the child, but he will not make any other terms than these. He will not see you at all until you have agreed to his demands. You will marry him, and sign a paper giving him a right to a portion of your fortune, in case you should make up your mind to claim it. You may leave him after the ceremony, if you will; you need not see him again; but you must swear never to betray him or us, and never to tell how you found the child.”
Into Leslie’s face creeps a look of intense loathing. All her courageous soul seems aroused into fearless action. Her scornful eyes fairly burn into the old woman’s face.