"How dare you intrude yourself here after your vile persecutions of Geraldine? Your audacity is startling, and I should do quite right to hand you over to the police on the charge of abducting and intimidating an innocent young girl! But I abhor scandal, and for this reason I shall not have you punished, unless—you dare to annoy us again!"
Recovering his hardihood, he muttered, sullenly:
"Madame, I deny the truth of your statements. Your daughter promised to marry me!"
"At the point of a revolver, yes, when, fearing for her life, she determined to temporize with you, hoping to throw you off your guard that she might escape your cowardly persecution. She has told me her story from beginning to end, and I shudder to think what might have been my dear girl's fate but for our meeting on the train!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitzgerald, flashing on him the scornful lightnings of her reproachful eyes.
Realizing for the first time that Geraldine had duped him in her apparent acquiescence to his will, and feeling himself beaten for the time in the dangerous game he had played, he cowered sullenly before her as she pointed to the door, saying, authoritatively:
"Now go, you hound! and never let me see your craven face again!"
Defeated, humiliated, writhing under her womanly scorn, he slunk out of the room and from her presence, into the wintry streets whose chill he could not feel, so hotly was he raging in his inmost heart against the two women who had scorned him for his wickedness.
"So you were playing on my credulity, laughing at me in your sleeve, pretty Geraldine!" he muttered, with a stifled oath. "Very well. You defeated me this time, but—look to yourself in the future!"
So muttering, he turned toward the sleigh that he had left waiting for him, but, to his surprise, it was gone.
For some unknown reason the driver had proved false to his engagement, and deserted his post.