“Mr Vane,” she replied, “I am at a loss to account for your presence here; it is unbidden and unwished for, no less than it is intrusive. I request that you will retire.”
“Excuse me, Helen——”
“Sir——”
“Well, if you prefer it, Miss Grahame, Has Miss Grahame so soon forgotten the language her eyes have at times addressed to me beneath her father’s roof? Does she expect that she is to spread her wiles with a result satisfactory only to herself, that she is to ensnare the eagle, and that act is to suffice to tame him too? She tried to take captive my poor susceptible heart; and if she has succeeded, should she wonder and feel insulted that I desire some return——”
“You are unmanly—you are contemptibly base. You would not dare thus to insult me, but that you, coward-like, see that I am alone and unprotected. Leave me instantly,” she cried, with a proud, impatient, passionate gesture of her hand.
“No,” he answered, coolly; “not until we have come to a better understanding with each other. It is easy for me to comprehend—indeed, I am partly acquainted with the fact—that you have left home for ever; that you are here residing in humble obscurity, for which you were never destined. In the person of your haughty father and your ridiculously proud mother, the world has turned its back upon you. It is for you to do the same upon it.”
Helen frantically motioned to him to leave the room. Her whole frame was convulsed with violent emotion.
“Go!” she cried, hoarsely; “go, insulting villain, go, or your continued presence will slay me! Oh, is there no help near to save me?”
As if in answer to her appeal, the door opened, and Mr. Bantom, with a slightly excited manner, looked in.
He had visited his friend in “pupple,” who had been the medium of Malcolm Grahame’s offer to Lotte. After shaking the man’s senses almost out of him, he extorted from him that the “gent” who had made a tool of him lived next door to Mr. Wilton’s residence. Bantom went there, and had an interview with Whelks, who, finding that Bantom intended mischief, transferred to Vane’s shoulders the responsibility of having insulted Lotte, believing that Mr. Bantom would never find him, and if he did, he would not dare to touch him. He had mistaken his man. Bantom had hunted Vane down, and had caught him here.