"Why did she thirst for your life?"
"I held a dangerous secret of hers, and she believed me dead. When I hunted her down and threatened to betray her, she tried to kill me. She pushed me over the bluff, but I was picked up by a passing yacht, and my life was saved."
"What was that secret?"
"She has promised to pay me richly for keeping it," sullenly answered the man.
"She cannot keep her promise, because she is not my daughter at all, but an adopted one, and, finding out that she has attempted many crimes, I shall cast her off penniless."
"That alters the case. If she cannot pay me for holding my tongue, I'll take my revenge instead," answered Carlos Cisneros, with flashing eyes. "Sir, Roma is my wife. We were married secretly at boarding school. Then she tired of me and went home, while I was ill. When I hunted her down she attempted to murder me!"
Suddenly they were startled by a tigerish snarl of rage.
Granny, creeping catlike along the hall, came suddenly upon the open door, and the group within her room.
She staggered over the threshold, and glared like a tiger in the act of springing.