Spoiled by the taste of wealth, the pair had begun a system of blackmail that threatened to bankrupt the lady if permitted to continue.
In vain she offered to take both of them back into her employ and pay the most liberal wages; they had grown too high and mighty to work, and intended to be furnished with ample means to pursue a life of idleness and luxury.
They threatened to betray the whole thing to Daisie unless she complied with their insistent demands.
After a stormy scene this morning with Letty, in which she had been remorselessly mulcted of several hundred dollars, it was most embarrassing to find that Daisie had just met the pair outside, and that only her payment of the money had prevented the injured girl from finding out the whole truth.
She knew that Letty would return ere long for more money, and that her persecution would never cease while the pair lived.
“Oh, I wish they would drop dead this day! I wish the trolley cars would run them down and kill both the wretches!” she thought vindictively.
She was thoroughly frightened and angry, too, at having to lose so much money, and she took a sudden resolution to confess everything to Royall, and get his advice.
After all, Royall had profited more than she had by the successful plot. He had won Daisie for his wife, but she had lost Dallas Bain, for whom she had dared and risked so much. Almost seven months had flown, and she had never heard of him again since he had left Gull Beach in the gray dawn, driven away by her cruel scheming. He might be dead and buried, for all she knew.
And for all her beauty and pride and wealth, no one need have envied Lutie Fleming, she was secretly so unhappy over the aching pain of her wild and hopeless love.
True, the meeting last night with Lord Werter had turned her thoughts in his direction; but she did not really suspect his identity with the man she loved, despite the wonderful likeness. It was no wonder, for she had been accustomed to think of Dallas as poor and obscure, tutored thereto by Royall Sherwood.