“How came you here?” she demanded, harshly. “Who has betrayed me to you?”
He laughed.
“Ah! so you come here alone, at dark, to search for certain documents which you fondly believe concern your welfare?” he sneered. “But between you and me, Violet, you will never get your hands upon them. When you are my wife, then and then only will you come into possession of the papers and secure your rights. You had better yield to me and become my wife at once, Violet. I do not love you, but I intend to have the Arleigh fortune.”
She waited to hear no more. With a stifled cry she darted past him so swiftly that he had no time to detain her—on through the darkness, down the outer staircase, out into the grounds, and straight into the arms of a man coming swiftly up the walk from the opposite direction. It was Will Venners. And just then, at the library window, a few feet away, Leonard Yorke appeared, his moody eyes fixed upon the scene, taking it all in.
CHAPTER XXII.
VIOLET ATTEMPTS A TRUCE.
Violet was so overcome with terror and surprise, and so nervous and overwrought, that for a time she could only stand there, Will’s arms about her, his face, pale and startled, bent over her own, his eyes full of tender sympathy.
“Violet—Miss Arleigh!” he cried, and his voice trembled as he spoke, “what is the matter? What has frightened you so? For I am sure that you were frightened at something. You came running down the staircase yonder as though some dreadful creature were in pursuit. Come, let us go over to that rustic seat under the magnolia-tree yonder, and sit down for a few moments. To tell the truth, Miss Arleigh, I had wished very much to see you, and it seemed as if my good fortune precipitated you directly into my arms.”
Violet did not see the stern white face at the library window, where her modern Othello stood glaring down in speechless wrath upon the scene. It looked like a love-scene, certainly; to the jealous imagination of the lover it looked like a meeting between two who cared for each other.