He started to his feet, white with anger.
"Remember that I know best, and this is best for you, a necessary test, I say. But since you refuse, I shall be compelled to use force."
He seized her hands and dragged her forcibly to the fireside, the poor girl writhing and struggling in his grasp.
"Uncle Bernard—for the love of Heaven, stop!" she pleaded; "stop and think what you are doing! You are about to inflict the most terrible torture upon me; you will doubtless maim me for life. Uncle Bernard—Uncle Bernard, for the love of Heaven—I beg of you to stop—to spare me! Please—please—please!"
The sweet voice grew weaker and fainter as the old man forced her nearer the burning coals within the grate; in his eyes the fire of a fiendish purpose, his face as white as marble.
"I am obliged to do it, Beatrix," he said in a low, ominous voice. "If the result proves satisfactory, I shall be at liberty to explain the mystery to you, and then you will know the unutterable horror that you have escaped. If the fire burns you—pray that the fire will burn you, Beatrix," he broke off, wildly—"pray that your little hand may be scarred for all time, rather than have that awful curse to fall upon you. Oh, yes, I know you think me a madman! but listen to me, child"—his voice softening a little: "You think me a madman—a brute—a fiend; but when you have heard the truth you will think differently. I have sought vengeance all my life, but somehow your piteous eyes and helpless loneliness have made me feel a little kinder, and if it were not for Keith Kenyon, and the debt of vengeance that I owe—" He stopped short, checking himself with a strange, half-angry gesture, as though he regretted having spoken so freely. "This much I can tell you, Beatrix"—his voice had fallen almost to a whisper. There was no sound to break the awful silence of the room, save old Bernard Dane's heavy breathing and the dropping of a coal in the grate. Beatrix stood there, her hands crushed in his iron grasp—one would never have dreamed that the old man was so strong—and listened eagerly, breathlessly, to his next words.
"This much I will tell you," he went on, slowly; "and after you have heard it, I think you will agree with me. Yours is a fearful heritage, Beatrix—an heritage of woe. I will not put it into words, for if you were to know it—to know the secret of your own dark inheritance—it would kill you as you stand there before me. Beatrix, there is poison in your very life-blood—an awful taint suspected, which can only be proved by this crucial test. Beatrix, obey me; place your hand in yonder fire, as I bid you. If it comes forth burned and disfigured—a mass of horrible burns and unsightly scars, your body racked with suffering, then thank your God upon bended knee that you have escaped the doom of your race. If, on the other hand, contact with the fire should have no effect upon you, I advise you, young and fair though you are, to take your own life! Will you place your hand in the flame?"
She shrank back, paling and shivering.
"I—can not!" she faltered. "I—"
"Hush! You shall—you must!"