“No, you mustn’t do that, Morgan.”
“But he has abused you?”
“He never offered me personal violence—oh, believe that. It was my money he was determined to have—he worships money.”
“Well, he kept you a prisoner against your will—he is the greatest villain unhung; and I mean to have satisfaction out of his accursed hide some day.”
Again she gave a cry—somehow it hurt me, as though a marlin spike had been dropped upon my battered cranium.
“See here, do you mean to tell me you still care for that detestable wretch?”
I demanded this in a hoarse whisper, at the same time bending forward and placing a hand on the arm of her rattan chair.
Strange as it may appear, the possibility that she could still cling to Tempest after he had acted the villain, aroused me more than anything else—cling to him while she hated me, and yet when I left her I had surrounded her with every luxury wealth could buy.
It only made me realize more than ever that womankind was a mystery past the solving by a masculine mind. Her very silence confirmed my fears.
This fellow had not only stolen the wife I had in my folly given up, but, worse still, he appeared to have an influence upon her my personality had never been able to affect.