It was the last day, the last hour; and Leslie’s strength and courage are sorely tried.
“Trust all to me,” he had said. “When the right time comes, I will be at hand.”
Leslie arose, and paced slowly up and down her narrow room, feeling her heart almost stop its beating. Had she not trusted to him? trusted blindly; and now—had not the right time come? Was it not the only time? And where was Stanhope? “If he should fail me!” she moaned, “if he should fail me after all!”
And her heart leaps suddenly; its tumultuous throbbings nearly suffocate her. She sits down again and her breath comes hard and fast.
“If he should fail me,” she says again, “then—that would be the end.”
For she has made a fearful resolve. She would play her part, as it was the only way. She would not fail in the task he had assigned her, and if, at the last, he failed, then—before she became the wife of Franz Francoise, she would die!
And Daisy—what, then, would become of her?
Leslie puts back the thought with a passionate moan. She must not think now.
Mamma has sworn to produce the child within the hour that sees Leslie the wife of Franz. And Leslie has vowed, when the child’s hand is in hers, to sign a paper which Mamma shall place before her—anything; she cares not what.
She has agreed to all this, suffered her martyrdom, sustained by the promise: “At the right time I shall be at hand. I will not fail you.”