“What villains? What are you talking about?”
Elsie bit her lip. She had promised Coe to reveal no slightest word regarding her experiences with the kidnappers of Webb, and now she had given a hint!
“Nothing,” she said, “nothing, Fenn. Oh, I am ill, please take me home!”
“You’re not ill, Elsie, but you’re terribly frightened. Tell me what about and tell me who are the villains who are troubling you. Let me settle with them! I am your rightful protector. You are engaged to me, and in less than a week is our wedding day! Can’t we announce it, at once, and let me be known as your proper protector? You shall not leave this room until you say yes!”
CHAPTER XV
IN UNIFORM
“Is that a threat?” Elsie turned on Whiting, with sudden rage.
“Not unless you choose to take it so.” But the man’s steely grey eyes were commanding rather than imploring, and his thin lips were set in a straight line that bespoke determination. “Don’t make me threaten you, Elsie,—why should it be necessary? I love you and I want you,—but more than that I want your promise to marry me at once to save yourself from persecution and trouble. You were trapped here, you say,—you just referred to some villains who have, I must infer, already annoyed you. Why haven’t you told me of it?”
“Why should I? I can’t marry you, Fenn, after all. I know I said I would,—and you know what I said I’d do right afterward. But I can’t do that. Perhaps I’m too much of a coward, to take my own life,—perhaps it would be a cowardly thing to do, anyway. But, I can’t marry you—”
“You must, Elsie, you promised me—”
“Such promises have been broken before this! A consent to marry is not a marriage contract! Sue me for breach of promise, if you choose,—I refuse to marry you!”