She utters a cry—she recoils with a face of terror, for there in the twilight before her, tall, black, sinister, stands Juan Catheron.
"You!" she gasps.
"I, my dear—I, in the flesh. Did you think I had gone? My dear Ethel, so I would have gone, if Inez had come down in the sisterly way she should. But she hasn't. I give you my word of honor her conduct has been shabby in the extreme. A few hundreds—I asked no more—and she wouldn't. What was a miserly fifty pun' note to a man like me, with expensive tastes, and who has not set foot on British soil for two years? Not a jewel would she part with—all Sir Victor's presents, forsooth! And she's in love with Sir Victor, you know. Perhaps you don't know, though. 'Pon my life, she is, Ethel, and means to have him yet, too. That's what she says, and she is a girl to do as she says, is Inez. That's why I'm here to-night, my dear. I can't go to Sir Victor, you understand—motives of delicacy, and all that—so I waited my chance, and have come to you. You may be fickle, but I don't think you're stingy. And something is due to my outraged feelings, blighted affections, and all that. Give me five hundred pounds, Ethel, and let us call it square."
He came nearer, his big, brown hand outstretched. She shrank away, hatred and repulsion in her face.
"Stand back!" she said. "Don't come near me, Juan Catheron! How dare you intrude here! How dare you speak to me!"
"How dare I? Oh, come now, I say, I like that. If a man may not speak to his own wife, to whom may he speak? If it comes to that, how dare you throw me over, and commit bigamy, and marry Sir Victor Catheron? It's of no use your riding the high horse with me, Ethel; you had better give me the five hundred—I'm sure I'm moderate enough—and let me go."
"I will not give you a farthing; and if you do not leave this place instantly, I will call my husband. Oh!" she burst forth, frantically, "between you and your sister you will drive me mad!"
"Will you give me the money?" asked Juan Catheron, folding his arms and turning sullen.
"I have not got it. What money have I?—and if I had, I say I would not give you a farthing. Begone! or—"
"You have diamonds." He pointed to her hands. "They will do—easily convertible in London. Hand them here, or, by all the gods, I'll blow the story of your bigamy all over England!"