Camillia looked hurriedly around her. All her suspicions had returned at the aspect of the place to which the planter had brought her.
The door opening by its mysterious spring, the dark passage and winding stair, the strange silence of the place in which their footsteps sounded as if they had been shod with felt—all combined to inspire terror.
"My father! my father!" she exclaimed. "Where is he?"
"Heaven knows," answered Augustus, "perhaps searching for you in the portico of the Opera-House. Camillia Moraquitos, you are young and new to a world in which men have passionate and revengeful hearts. You have much to learn, but you will take a lesson, it may be, ere long. This morning you insulted me; to-night you are in my power!"
CHAPTER XXII.
THE ENCOUNTER IN THE GAMBLING-HOUSE.
As the planter uttered the horrible threat, contained in our last chapter, every drop of blood fled from the cheeks and lips of Camillia Moraquitos, leaving them pale and colder than marble.
"This morning you insulted me—to-night you are in my power!"
It was then as she expected—as she had feared. She was entrapped—cajoled—in the power of a villain and a hypocrite.
She knew not even in what quarter of the city this mysterious house was situated.