“With Mrs. McMorris?” she whispered, vaguely pointing toward his spider parlor.
“Without Mrs. McMorris,” the ardent pleading voice replied.
“I will tell you all. I will lay my life at your feet!”
Alida Hathorn pouted. “I will never find my way.” Her tone was that of light raillery, but her cheeks were deadly pale. She was trembling on the brink of her ruin.
And then, Vreeland, taking her hands in his, whispered to her words whereat the busy familiar devil at his side laughed in glee.
“If you mean to say yes,” he murmured, “give me that red rose from your breast.”
And when he raised his head, the rose in his hand was the pledge of a dark tryst of the devil’s own making.
Before he slept, for his throbbing heart would not down in the crowning victory of his revenge upon the desperate Hathorn, he tore open a telegram which marked another milestone of his life.
“Victory!” he cried, for the words told him of Justine’s success.
“They dined to-day alone at the place named, and I have news for you. Coming home, by Pittsburg.”