He stood before her glaring down into her frightened face with wild eyes full of triumph.
“So you know the situation at last, my lady,” he sneered. “You are in my hands, and it will be many a long day before you get out again, I can assure you, unless you will consent to my wishes. Violet, if you will marry me at once, I will swear to leave you and never come near you again. I want the Arleigh fortune, and if you will secure it to me by marriage, I will never trouble you more. You shall be as free as the bird of the air. What do you say, Violet?”
“I say that you are a villain, Gilbert Warrington, and that I would sooner die than become your wife.”
“Humph! I fancy you will change that decision when you learn the full extent of my power over you. Violet Arleigh, shall I tell you the secret which I have held over your mother’s head for many a year, the secret which I had threatened to expose the very night that she—she died. It terrified her so that she attempted to take her own life.”
“I do not believe it! I do not believe that my mother would ever think seriously of such a dreadful thing as suicide!” cried the girl, excitedly. “I believe that you are speaking falsely. You are a bad man—a false, bad man, and a villain, if ever there was one!”
Gilbert Warrington smiled. Even in the dense shadow of the trees, through which the silvery moon-rays could scarcely penetrate, Violet saw that smile, and a chill crept over her.
“This is all mere waste of time and breath, you know, my dear,” he observed, harshly. “I am going to have my own way in this matter, and you may as well yield peacefully as otherwise, for yield you must! Now, Violet, I ask you once more, would you like to learn the nature of the secret which blackened all your mother’s life and made her afraid of her own shadow—a secret which I alone shared, and which I held over her head until she longed to die to escape the knowledge—a secret for which she paid dearly in more ways than one?”
“Yes, indeed,” panted the girl, desperately, “she paid you well, you blackmailer and extortioner! I knew that there was something hidden in the past for which she was suffering and atoning with her very life. I know nothing of the nature of that secret; but I do not believe that it has anything to do with dishonor if it had any connection with my mother!”
“Ah, indeed! What confidence, to be sure! It is truly touching. What a blow it will be for you, my dear, when you learn the truth—that your mother was base and vile and wanton——”
“Stop! So help me Heaven, you shall not breathe such words against my pure mother, a saint in Heaven! Dare to open your lips to speak such vile words again, Gilbert Warrington, and I will find some way to punish you!”