“Come, Dora,” he added, “we will go home; we won’t stay here any longer.”
He again took Dora’s hand, which he had dropped in his astonishment, and started to leave the place.
“Stay,” said Squire Moulton, quickly, and a wicked expression swept away the agony that had been on his white face a moment before, while the devilish look came back to his evil eyes, though he tried to control it, and render his manner pleasant and affable.
“Stay, my young friends, you shall have your wish. I will marry you. I used to know your mother, young man, and hearing that she was dead took me by surprise. Yes, I will marry you, certainly,” he continued, gleefully rubbing his hands together; “only tell me first who this young lady is. Is her papa rich like your father?”
“No, sir,” replied Dora, promptly, her anger vanishing at the squire’s pleasant manner. “Poor papa is dead; he was a doctor; and my name is Dora, and mamma lives in a little cottage; but that is no matter, for Robbie will be rich, so it doesn’t make any difference.”
“No, no, certainly not, my little miss,” and he laughed disagreeably again.
“You stay here a few minutes while I go and make out a certificate—for, luckily, I happen to be clerk as well as justice—and then I’ll come back and perform the ceremony, and you shall be truly Mrs. Robert Ellerton before you go home.”
So saying the squire strode with hasty steps toward his elegant mansion, where, once within his library, he gave free vent to his pent-up feelings.
With clenched hands and wrinkled brow he paced back and forth the spacious length of that great room, cursing, bitterly cursing, and muttering to himself:
“Oh, Robert Ellerton,” he said, “I have you now; I can now pay you twice told for all my weary years of woe and anguish. You shall moan and weep, and gnash your teeth, even as I have done. Your false pride shall have a blow from which it will never recover. I remember you too well to know how it would gall you to have your son marry a poor girl, and under such circumstances, too. And he—he too, will chafe in the future at the chain that binds him. I know how you have built proud castles in the air for him, even as you used to for yourself, but they shall all tumble about your ears in confusion. It is in my power to crush you now, and, curse you, I will do it! Oh, Jessie, my poor blossom, had you but given yourself to me, how bright would I have made your life! I would have held you close—close to this beating heart, and it should have given you life. My life has been, and is, like the dregs of the wine-cup, sour and bitter, but you could have made it sweet and fragrant as burning incense. But now there is nothing left but revenge, and—I will take it! Oh, how I hate you, blighter of my happiness! I curse you! and I will crush you and yours if I can.”