"I mean nothing of the kind, my good sir. To the infernal shades I consign your scheming adventuress."
He rose from his lounging attitude with another of those bitter and cynical bursts of laughter, and dashing open the glass door, stepped out upon the gravel walk to saunter, his hands behind him, past the old moss-grown fish-pool, into the shrubbery.
The sun shone on the stately form and on his purple black hair. It wavered between leafy banners on his angry face, so dark with ominous clouds, and merciless with the dance of inward passions.
And yet it was a grand picture of desolation, that lofty countenance in its wrath. The fires of a thousand passions had graved these deep curves of bitterness, and marred the once genial mouth with the never absent sneer, and perverted an intellect once pure and stately.
No wonder that the two men, who were watching him in silence as he deliberately slashed down lilies with his cane, shuddered when they thought of the poor girl who stood between him and Castle Brand.
Margaret sat in her room, dumbly enduring the first humiliation of her life. Her humble soul had been outraged—disgraced. That cruel, insulting laugh still rang in her ears. Her cheeks flamed with shame; her eyes were suffused with hot tears. She could do nothing but sit in a trance, and busy-brained, revolve it over and over until she trembled with the agony of wounded pride.
Her sense of womanly honor had been trampled upon; her unapproachable self-respect had been bandied about by impure hands. Margaret felt that she was forever disgraced. To have been thrown at his feet, to suffer his eyes to scorn her, to see the wicked mouth sneer—the reckless head thrown back—to hear the muttered "Ye gods! what a Medusa!" to be stunned by the loud "ha! ha!" to be consorted with a monster of dissipation, such as he was—and to be scorned. Oh, cruel Ethel Brand: to force a friendless girl into such a position! Why had she not rather turned her from these castle doors, four years ago, than reserve her for such a fate as this?
Margaret began to see that she was terribly in Captain Brand's power—that if he were rascal enough to propose to her, she could scarcely in honor refuse him, and keep him out of his property. She also saw, with vague, prophetic eyes, a vision in the distance, of stealthy hands stretching toward her life in either case.
The ruddy sun, slipping down behind the cliffs two hours later, looked in at Margaret, who, with her door securely locked, sped about with motions of nervous energy, packing a small valise of clothes to take with her upon a sudden journey.
She had determined to blot herself by her own act out of Ethel Brand's will, by disappearing alike from friend and enemy, and hiding herself in some far distant corner of England, until Captain Brand had stepped into secure possession of Castle Brand.