Augustus walked up and down the room as he spoke, and every accent revealed his rage, at the defeat and humiliation he had sustained since the preceding night.
"Mr. Horton," said Gerald Leslie gravely, "Philip Treverton and I had a very serious purpose in coming to you here this evening. We come to make an appeal to your generosity, and your sense of manly honor. Will you listen patiently to that appeal?"
"You are free to speak," replied Augustus, haughtily, and throwing away his cigar, he folded his arms, and placed himself against a pillar that bordered the window, as if prepared to listen, but as if determined not to be convinced.
"I appeal to you, then, in the presence of your sister and your cousin, and in that of Mrs. Montresor, whose sentiments, I know, are opposed to the cruel system of barter, which has in my case deprived a father of his beloved and only daughter—I appeal to every better feeling of your nature, and I ask if my child Cora is to suffer for one hour for the infamy of that man, Silas Craig? Restore her to freedom, before I institute proceedings to invalidate the illegal sale of my property, which was seized upon for a debt I never owed."
Augustus Horton laughed bitterly.
"All this is very fine," he said; "but as Miss Cora Leslie has chosen to run away from her rightful owner, it is not in my power to give her up—even if I wished it!"
"Would you restore her to me if she were found?" asked Gerald Leslie.
"No."
"You would not? Remember, we are rich, and I would give back your fifty thousand dollars, or double that sum if you pleased."
"Curse your paltry dollars!" cried Augustus. "It was revenge I wanted to buy with my money; revenge for the insult your slave-daughter dared to inflict upon me. And am I to be balked of that revenge to the very last? No, I repeat, that were Cora recaptured to-night, I would not give her up."