When he would have drawn her to him, she flung him off and dropped, a shaken Niöbe, into a chair, with her stormy tears raining over her beautiful, pallid face. That single word, “child,” had disarmed her rising anger. For, she was facing one who knew all of the sealed past.
“My child, my child,” she sobbed.
But, James Garston was on his knees before her now.
“Our child—Margaret! It can all be made right, now. Trust to me. Let me take you openly to my heart. Be my wife once more. Be a world’s queen. I will make you happy.”
Bold as he was, he shuddered, as she sprang to her feet. “You hound!” she bitterly cried, and then slowly turned, and walked unsteadily to the door. He had found a way to wring her heart at last, but her courage had returned. The wrongs of her youth burned in her bosom again.
“Hear me. You must! You shall!” he pleaded, seizing her in his strong arms. “I knew not even the horn book of my own nature when we married as young fools marry.” She had torn herself away from him, and stood at bay with an unutterable loathing hardening upon her face. “I am rich, now, a Senator to be, and the friend of your friends.
“You dare not openly defy me. For, I can publicly claim you as mine. I demand to see our child. I offer you myself—the matured man—a leader of men. I offer you a secured, honored place in Washington life. And, you need me, for I can throw down your house of cards. When Alynton told me of the wonder-worker, the Queen of the Street, the Lady of Lakemere, I was merely interested. But, when I saw you, last night, my heart leaped up. For mine you were, mine you are—mine you shall be.”
The strong man counted upon the physical subjection of the woman once reduced to be his loving vassal—the girl wife who had lain in his arms.
And, master of her destiny once, he would now bend her to his will again.
His eyes were burning, his breath came quickly, and he awaited the physical revulsion of a weakened womanhood.