“And if you do not succeed in winning my consent—what disposition do you intend to make of me in that case?”
“I intend to return you to your friends.”
“Indeed! Would it not have been better to have left me with my friends? Do you think it possible to win my regard under such monstrous circumstances as those with which you have surrounded me?”
“I think I shall at least succeed in winning your respect.”
“What! Win my respect, when you have stolen from me all the respect and esteem with which I have ever been regarded by the friends from whom you have stolen me?”
“Miss Harlan, you are as safe here as——”
“Stop, sir! You are, perhaps, positive of the truth of that statement, and I will admit that you have partially convinced me of it; but are you so ingenuous, so unsophisticated in regard to worldly matters, as to suppose for a moment that others will regard my present plight in that manner? It would have been better, much better for me, Count Cadillac, had you murdered me in cold blood before you brought me here as you have done. It would have been better for you had you permitted me to make use of that weapon which I just now turned upon myself, to end my life, and afterward used it for the same purpose upon yourself; and it would have been much better for both of us had you met the fate of your brother, who is now a convict.
“Wait, sir, I have not done. I will finish what I have to say, and then I will thank you if you will leave me to myself.
“I shall not take my own life now, Count Cadillac; I shall live. Back yonder in New York there is a man toward whom my brother is now speeding, with all the power the engines of his yacht contain. You know to whom I refer.”
“Nick Carter!”