“I do not mock you, Hortensia. Answer me! Is it true that you love him?”
“It is true,” she answered steadily. “What is't to you?”
“Everything!” he answered hotly. “Everything! It is Heaven and Hell to me. Ten days ago, Hortensia, I asked you to marry me—”
“No more,” she begged him, an arm thrown out to stay him.
“But there is more,” he answered, advancing again. “This time I can make the offer more attractive. Marry me, and Caryll is not only free to depart, but no evidence shall be laid against him. I swear it! Refuse me, and he hangs as surely—as surely as you and I talk together here this moment.”
Cold eyes scathed him with contempt. “God!” she cried. “What manner of monster are you, my lord? To speak so—to speak of marriage to me, and to speak of hanging a man who is son to that same father of yours who lies above stairs, not yet turned cold. Are you human at all?”
“Ay—and in nothing so human as in my love for you, Hortensia.”
She put her hands to her face. “Give me patience!” she prayed. “The insult of it after what has passed! Let me go, sir; open that door, and let me go.”
He stood regarding her a moment, with lowering brows. Then he turned, and went slowly to the door. “He dies, remember!” said he, and the words, the sinister tone and the sinister look that was stamped upon his face, shattered her spirit as at a blow.
“No, no!” she faltered, and advanced a step or two. “Oh, have pity!”