Molly sat upright among her pillows, and her eyes flashed resentfully.
“Oh, yes, that is what you would like!” she exclaimed. “You want to hustle me out of sight somewhere, thinking that I shall never have the opportunity of telling Cecil the part you took in sending me to Ferndale under a borrowed identity; but I shall tell him all when I see him again, and then he shall judge between us.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
Suddenly Miss Barry arose from her seat, stepped quickly to the bed, and caught Molly’s hot, writhing hands in both her strong, cool, white ones. It was a fierce, vindictive grasp that pained Molly’s tender wrists, and, looking up with frightened eyes, she saw that Louise’s face was working with fury.
“Look at me, Molly Trueheart!” she hissed, savagely, and Molly’s dark, piteous, tearful orbs lifted reluctantly to meet that gaze filled with tigress fury.
Louise continued, fiercely:
“Since you came to live with us as a child, Molly, have you ever known me to give up anything on which I had set my heart?”
“No,” sighed the trembling girl.
“Have I not forced you in every instance where our wills clashed to yield to me?”
“Ye-es,” half sobbed the agonized victim, with a shudder.