"Five thousand dollars?"
"Not a dollar!" she reiterated firmly.
"Very well," he answered, weakly. "I have said you shall name your own price. Shall I go to my lawyer now, Xenie?"
"Yes, now," she answered, with a flash of triumph in her eyes.
He stood still a moment looking at her with a half-insane look of cunning on the wrinkled features that but a moment ago had been transformed by maniacal rage.
"Poor boy!" he said, "you hate him very much, Xenie; I wonder what he has done to make you his enemy!"
She did not answer, and the old millionaire went out of the room, after turning upon her a strange look of blended cunning and triumph which she could not understand.
"Pshaw! he meant nothing by it," she said to herself to dispel the uneasy impression that glance had left. "The old man is getting weak and silly. One is scarcely safe alone with him."
She shuddered at the recollection of what she had passed through, and going to her private room, locked the door and bathed her swollen, discolored face with a healing lotion.