“Wal,” says Franz, turning a facetious look upon Mamma, and giving her arm a gentle shake; “the old un may have trifled with the truth, here and there, but she’s right in the main. How did the proposition strike ye?”
Leslie turns from him and fixes her gaze upon the old woman.
“And this,” she says, “is the man you would mate me with! Woman, you have overreached yourself. Believing, or fearing, myself to be your child, I might have been driven to any act of desperation. You have lifted that burden of horror from off my heart. I am not your child! No blood of yours poisons my veins! Do you think in the moment when I find the taint removed, I would doubly defile myself by taking the step you have proposed? Never! Your power over me is gone!”
“Do ye mean,” queries Franz quite coolly, “that you won’t take up with the old woman’s bargain?”
“She has done it!” cries Mamma fiercely. “She’s given her promise!”
“And I now retract it!”
“What!” Mamma suddenly wrenches herself free and springs toward Leslie. “You won’t marry Franz?”
“Never! The fear which has made me a coward is gone. I shall go back to my own. I will tell my story far and wide. I feared nothing so much as the shame of being pointed out as the child of such parents. You will not dare repeat that imposture; I defy you. As for little Daisy, I will find her; I will punish you—”
“You will find her!” Mamma’s voice is horrible in its hoarse rage. “Now mark my words: You will never find her. She will never see daylight again. As for you, you will marry Franz Francoise to-morrow, or you will go out of this place between two officers, arrested as the murderess of Josef Siebel!”
It is more than she can bear. The strength born of her strong excitement deserts her. Mamma’s eyes burn into her own; she feels her hot, baleful breath upon her cheek; hears the horrible words hissed so close to her ear; and with a low moan falls forward, to be caught in the arms of Franz Francoise, where she lies pallid and senseless.