They were facing each other, as Vreeland hoarsely whispered, “And, my reward?” The woman’s warring soul shone in her eyes.
“Let me know first that I can trust you,” she whispered with ashen lips. “Trust to me, and, remember a woman’s gratitude can overpay. Drive no hard bargain with me.”
In a moment, Harold Vreeland, on his pinnacle of sudden prosperity, saw the gulf yawning before him. “If Elaine should find it out.” He bowed his head, but the truth stole into his lying face.
“Is it possible that you are a coward?” cried Alida Hathorn. “You would flinch before the woman who has come to you here—here, at your bidding. I believed that we both were ready to pay the price.” He sprang to her side, in answer to the invitation of her eyes.
“Listen,” he whispered. “I will, so help me God, give you all the duplicate orders of my private account for the next two weeks. But, to you, alone.”
He listened, and was astounded at her daring plan to receive his betrayal of the confidence of a woman who had been her bane, and yet, he yielded to the charm at last.
The echo of her departing foot on the stair left him stunned and breathless at his own unwitting self-surrender. For, caught off his guard, he had left the vantage-ground which he proposed to hold.
“In any case, neither of us will dare to speak. There is ruin staring us both in the face, and, we should play fair. Fear is a wise counselor,” she had frankly said. He trembled before her moonlight eyes, burning in a wild unrest.
She had dominated him at the last, and, swept away an unscarred victor.
Three days of wild excitement followed the nocturnal visit of the Lady of the Red Rose. Vreeland was unable to leave his apartment even for a moment to meet Justine, his busy spy, or to respond to the urgent invitation of Miss Joanna Marble, who had telegraphed to him: “I have found the very woman you want. A perfect stranger, and, a beauty.”