But he might as well have addressed the walls for all the effect he produced.
There was a moment or two of silence, then the man continued, with something of authority:
"I have the right to come to you, Edith—I have a right to demand that you regard my wishes. If you are not prepared to receive me just now, name some time when I can see you, and I will wait patiently your pleasure; only speak and tell me that you will comply with my request."
It was both a pretty and a striking picture behind that closed door, if he could but have seen it—the fair girl, in her snowy robe, over which she had slipped a pretty light blue sack, reclining upon her elbow, her beautiful hair falling in graceful confusion about her shoulders; her violet eyes gleaming with a look of triumph in her advantage over the man without; her lips—into which the color was beginning to flow naturally again—parted just enough to reveal the milk-white teeth between them.
When the man outside asserted his right to come to her, the only sign she had made was a little toss of her golden-crowned head, indicative of defiance, while about the corners of her lovely mouth there lurked a smile of scorn that would have been maddening to Emil Correlli could he have seen it.
At last a discontented muttering and the sound of retreating steps in the hall told her that her persecutor had become discouraged, and gone. Then, with a sigh of relief, she sank back upon her pillow feeling both weak and weary from excitement.
Left alone once more, she fell into deep thought.
In spite of a feeling of despair which, at times, surged over her in view of the trying position in which she found herself, the base deception practiced upon her, aroused a spirit of indomitable resistance, to battle for herself and her outraged feelings, and outwit, if possible, these enemies of her peace.
"They have done this wicked thing—that woman and her brother," she said to herself; "they have cunningly plotted to lure me into this trap; but, though they have succeeded in fettering me for life, that is all the satisfaction that they will ever reap from their scheme. They cannot compel me, against my will, to live with a man whom I abhor. Even though I stood up before that multitude last evening, and appeared a willing actor in that disgraceful sacrilegious scene, no one can make me abide by it, and I shall denounce and defy them both; the world shall at least ring with scorn for their deed, even though I cannot free myself by proving a charge of fraud against them. But, oh—"
The proud little head suddenly drooped, and with a moan of pain she covered her convulsed face with her hands, as her thoughts flew to a certain room in New York, where she had spent one happy, blissful week in learning to love, with all her soul, the man whom she had served.